Return to Quotes directory
The tight pruning results in the
formation of green meatballs, cubes, rectangles and other odd
shapes.
- Michael A. Dirr
-
see What's
Coming Up #80
If you cut a shrub back because it's
just too big, and it dies, you haven't lost anything but a plant
that couldn't live by your rules.
- Janet Macunovich-
see What's
Coming Up #35
If a bush is too big, don't ask
"should I?" Go ahead and cut it. If it lives, great. If it dies,
replace it with something better suited.
- Janet Macunovich -
see What's
Coming Up #87 and What's
Coming Up #178
Bushes? Like hair! They grow back.
Stop worrying about it!
- Frances Kissinger
-
see What's
Coming Up #169
Right: Sometimes we might even
wish a plant would
die rather than come back. When smoke bush
(Cotinus coggygria) is pollarded -- cut to bare stubs
--
every year for a decade, it develops a gnarly
appearance
some would rather not see, even for the
few
weeks between cut back and grow-over.
They waited until he went out of
town
and then they thinned the trees.
He didn't notice for nearly a month.
- Janet Macunovich -
see What's
Coming Up #135
Fewer flowers after you prune hard?
Maybe. Temporarily. Small loss to bear for a big gain in size
control!
- Janet Macunovich -
Viburnums bloom in spring on wood
that developed its flower buds the previous summer. Remove branch
tips before bloom time and you do reduce the total number of
flowers the shrub will bear that year. You will not affect the
bloom of remaining buds.
If you can see that it was pruned, you did something wrong.
- Virginia Smith, words from
her grandmother back in the 1920's -
See Proof of gardening at
conifer clip
If you need a saw to prune a tree, you waited too long. Clippers
are always better than a saw.
- Mike Loncar -
See Clippers better than
saw
He carries a knife, curved
like a crane's bill and sharpened to a deadly edge, and this he
whips out to prune a dwarf fruit tree in minutes. "Mind you, don't
leave a stump; cut your branch right to the bone."
- Eleanor Perényi, Green
Thoughts, 1981 -
(speaking of the imaginary perfect gardener
in her history of unfortunate helpers)
The best pruning is invisible. If
what
you cut out are bad branches, no one
misses them.
- Virginia Holman -
See Clippers better than
saw
Always distrust
branches with staining
in the sapwood -- those rings from
previous years' growth.
When you see it, wipe your cutting blades with
peroxide, bleach or alcohol and cut
again,
farther down until your cut leaves clean
wood.
Bacterial stain in
Wisteria.
Okay, I pruned that rose.
I see. Now go back and prune it
more!
- Pro gardeners Mary Wente-Lindsay
and Julia
Dingle,
learning each others' pruning technique -