Most trees and shrubs can be pruned at this time of the year no problem but pruning spring-flowering plants such as forsythia and viburnums will cut off the flowers so you need to keep that in mind. I will go ahead and look for broken branches or branches that I don’t want and cut them out anyway. You should avoid pruning maple, birch and walnut trees because they will bleed sap when they leaf out in the spring. Although harmless, it can be unsightly and messy. These trees should be pruned in the fall but I’ve done it this time of year and it seemed to work out ok.

Pruning is something that should be done on a regular basis to keep your trees and shrubs in control and healthy. Most of the large tall trees like an oak should be done by a professional ISA (International Society of Arboriculture) arborist. Smaller trees can be done from the ground by using a combination telescoping pole saw and pruner. I’ve got one and they work great. The best is the style that has the small electric chain saw on the end. That’s the way to go for the guys who have a lot to do.

What you are looking for are limbs that are damaged or look diseased. I also look for branches that are rubbing against one another, or cross, and those that are growing toward the middle of the tree or shrub. You also might be looking to reshape the plant or get it back under control. This is the time to do it because you can see the skeleton of the plant because it has no leaves to block your view. Pruning will make the shrub denser and give it that full-bodied look you might be looking for.

There is loads of information on pruning on the web and at the library or garden center that will help you make the right cut, but it’s really not that big a deal, it’s like art– you take your time and look at it from every angle and make the cut. What’s nice is that mother nature will heal the wound by itself and recover well even if you cut a little to much. Don’t sweat it, it will grow back and what you’re left with is a healthier and better looking plant and, heck! It’s winter and I’m outside gardening.

If you leave those garden hoses hooked up over winter you can cause major damage not only to the hose but more importantly to the piping where the hose is connected.

What happens is the water will freeze and expand but the copper pipe won’t and the pipe will crack. This can be a real problem next spring when you turn on the water again or it thaws because it can leak in the house behind the outside wall. A little time spent now will save you major headaches in the spring.

I also like to drain the water out of the garden hoses and put them away so they won’t freeze and crack during the winter. Remove all the hose off the reel and lay them out on the lawn or driveway as straight as possible. Start on one end and lift the hose over your head, hand over hand, working your way to the other end allowing the water to drain out the other open end. Put the hose back on the reel and you have no water left to freeze in the hose and you can store them for next gardening season.

Some comments on what I learned:

The native plant lecture was presented by Allan Armitage, a real character and someone who knows his stuff on natives. He did give us his opinion on many different varieties and some of his favorites. He has written a book called “Legends in the Garden” that sounds like a good read if you want to know where plants come from.

Some of the plants he talked about:

Blue Star Flower (Amsonia)

‘Blue Ice’ is a good performer.

Foam Flower (Tiarella)

            ‘Spring Symphony’ is very hardy.

Coreopsis (Tickseed)

            ‘Route 66′ no deadheading & ‘Jethro Tull’ both are popular plants.

Rubeckia (Yellow Coneflower)

            ‘Viette’s Dwarf’ is a good container plant.

            ‘Early Bird Gold’ is early flowering.

            ‘Henry Eliers’ is a new three-foot-tall big plant.

Echinacea (Purple Coneflower) he commented on this plant that 5 years ago there were 3 varieties now there are 30. He thinks that the purple color does the best.

            ‘Kim’s Knee High’, Big Sky Series ‘Sunrise’, ‘Sundown’, and ‘Summer Sky’

            Best Double ‘Pink Double Delight’

Phlox

            ‘Delta Snow’ best year after year.

The Peacock series, ‘Neon Rose,’ ‘Neon Dark Rose’ and ‘White,’ good drought tolerance.

False Indigo (Baptisia)

            The first commercial crop in North America used for dye.

            These plants look great in the garden.

            ‘Purple Smoke’ and ‘Screaming Yellow’

Eupatorium (Joe Pye Weed)

            ‘Bartered Bride’ a white type.

            Dwarfs for containers ‘Little Joe’ and ‘Little Red’

Ferns

            Osmunda cinnamomea ‘Cinnamon Fern’ is a great plant.

Columbines

            ‘Little Lanterns’ Small works well in a container.

Grasses

            ‘Northwind’ one of the best won’t fall apart and fall.

            ‘Dallas Blue’ is a good container plant.

You can see there are a lot of plants he covered. I suggest you copy the names and Google them to see what they look like. It is a good way, I have found, to check them out fast.

 Containers

One thing I thought was worth a note, was that the lecturer Dan Benarcik, plant curator of Chanticleer Gardens, said that they fill their containers with two thirds rich compost and the top third is potting soil. Benarcik said the mixture works best for them because the potting soil on the top third of the container will help establish the young plants when they are first planted and then as the season continues the plant will have the rich compost to feed the plants and he says the compost will hold moisture much better than just potting soil.

Benarcik also said that when choosing a container you should keep in mind that porous containers like cement or clay terracotta are better for plants that are drought tolerant because they will not hold the moisture and will dry out faster than ceramic, plastic or metal containers.

Taking in the vendors’ show there were many exhibitors showing containers and yard ornaments. I also saw many vendors showing those bubbly fountains in containers of all sizes that overflow with water down the sides of the container disappearing in pebbles at the bottom, there seemed to be a lot of different types of those.

I think containers are very much part of the new green technology because they are easy to care for, they are a garden that can be moved easily from place, conserve water, fertilizer and might be a look into the future of gardening.

One of the suggestions was to shade your central air conditioner with shrubs or a small tree.

That happens to be one of my pet peeves when Shirley and I look at gardens. I usually end up noticing the air conditioner. Just something I do I guess after being in the air conditioning trade for so many years, I just notice the condition of the space around the air conditioning unit. If Shirley had her way she would bury the air conditioner behind a fence or hedge to hide it because as she says “it’s ugly,” but that’s not the right way to go.

Every manufacturer of air conditioning units have minimum required clearances away from things so the units can be serviced and more importantly get the outside air to flow around and through them easily. Planting young shrubs that grow up to close to the unit or putting a fence to close will only block air flow and cause the unit to operate at a higher temperature because it can’t breathe. If you have a choice where to put the unit in the first place it should be on the north side of the house but if you can’t, then I would say east is next best, then west, and last is on the south side. Planting a tree can help give you shade which will help but remember some trees shed things like seeds, spent blossoms, leaves and other debris that can get into the air conditioner and cause the coil to become clogged and block air flow.

Best case is to follow the manufacturer’s specifications and give the unit plenty of room and keep the area around it clean and open.

Mary Morrison of West Chicago has an interesting method she uses to make her hydrangea blossoms blue.

Mary always wanted a blue hydrangea so one day a few years back she was at the Meyer Landscaping garden store of West Chicago and picked up one. The people at the store told her that in order to get blue color she would have to treat the soil with this stuff to get blue blossoms because the soil in our area has to much lime in it. So she tried it but it didn’t work for her and she was getting the typical white blossoms. Then a gardener friend told her to try the following method.

Mary pushed in about 5 or 6 sixteen-penny nails in the ground around the roots of the plant. Then she also put the bows of her Christmas wreath and needles from her Christmas tree under the scrub as mulch for the roots.

Mary’s been using this method for the last two years and as you can see in the picture she has been getting great results.

The moles have appeared again this year. They sure can destroy a yard with their aimless and persistent tunneling. One of the best investments I ever made trying to keep them under control was buying a Victor Harpoon-style mole trap; they sell them at Ace Hardware and also all over the web. There are many other products on the market that claim to get rid of moles, but most are ineffective and can be potentially dangerous to other animals. The trap method may seem to be a little brutal but this is war.

The culprit is the Eastern mole (Scalopus aquanticus). Moles are about the size of chipmunks (six to eight inches long) and have gray-black fur with oversized front feet perfect for digging. They can tunnel up to 18 feet an hour and travel through an existing tunnel at about 80 feet per minute. Many people think they are eating bulbs and roots, but their primary diet is earthworms, grubs and insects. If there is a lot of moisture at the surface of the lawn and the worms and other insects are up there, the moles will be tunneling around eating them at the surface. If moisture is less and down deep in the ground, the moles will follow the worms and go deeper under the soil and the tunneling won’t be seen. So I guess if you have a lot of tunnels around the yard, the ground is good and wet. I just wish they were eating someone else’s worms.

Some extreme remedies I have heard of include trying to flood them out with the garden hose or shoving a hose from a running car exhaust in the tunnel to gas them out, just a waste of time. The only thing that seems to get the job done is the trap. It is important to always follow the manufacturer’s instructions to safely use the equipment, but patience and persistence will pay off.

When I see a tunnel I flatten a section of tunnel with my foot and then set up the trap there. Sometimes I can come back minutes later and the trap will be tripped. If you don’t want to see if you got him just pull the trap out of the ground and wait to see if more tunnels appear. If none appear you got him and the mole can stay in the tunnel dead and buried. If you see more tunnels you missed him or there is more to deal with. If you want to check to see if you got it just dig down an inch or so and see if you see any fur then you can dig him out the rest of the way and put him in a deeper hole or cover him up and he will become worm food right in the tunnel.

It sounds worse than it is but leaving them unchecked can really be a mess.

Well I thought I would do some research before I gave my opinion. I do suggest, when in doubt, check a topic out on the web or do some research at the library, if anyone uses those anymore. I do have a resource that I think is great–the University of Illinois Extension Service: http://web.extension.uiuc.edu.

As I thought, the flowers are produced on last year’s growth, so if you cut the heck out of the plant in spring you will not get many flowers. It’s easy to say. but tricky to determine, which branches are this year’s or last year’s growth, but if you wait until early fall after the blooms have faded you can tell which branches are done and prune away if the shrub needs to be shaped or its size kept under control, because it can grow up to fifteen feet.

The oakleaf hydrangea, if it is planted in the right spot and has plenty of room, doesn’t have to be pruned at all. just deadhead the flowers and cut out the dead wood if needed.

If it is totally out of control and you want to start over, it can be cut to the ground.

It is one of our favorite plants.

Most of the flowering shrubs like the fragrant viburnum, bridal wreath, lilac and high bush cranberry looked great this year and from what I’m hearing it must have been a good year for everyone. They are for the most part through blooming now and to keep them flowering year after year and to keep them in check, they need to be pruned.

First of all, I like to deadhead the flower pods that are left after the bloom has died back. They are kind of nasty looking and I think it is better for the plant. I would recommend checking the internet for information on your specific shrub for details on pruning because some may require different care. It’s always better to be safe than sorry. Although most shrubs can take pruning and are much better off for it.

For the lilacs, I like to cut out the older woody stems down to the ground. They say that it takes about three years before new shoots will produce a flower so I try to take out about a third of the older wood each year or so. This is commonly called renewal pruning.

Our fragrant viburnums need to be trimmed every year partly because Shirley had me plant them in the wrong place and we need to keep them from taking over the area they are in, but seriously my experience is that if you leave them alone they tend to get gigantic and very woody so I try to keep them in check by snipping back the new growth at a pair of leaflets and then the branch will split off into a new pair of branches, really filling out the shrub. I’ll probably have to trim the shrub twice or three times a year to help keep its shape.

Last weekend I tackled the bridal wreaths by renewal pruning and then shaping them a bit with hedge shears. I like to use the old manual type because I can take my time and snip off a little at a time. I tend to go crazy with the power type hedge trimmers, but if you have a lot of shrubs to do it may be the best tool to use for a big job.

Our high bush cranberrys are great this year too, but I’ll hit those about the same way I do the viburnums.

A white pine is a fast grower and can be a nice looking tree but sometimes they can take off and start to look leggy and overrun their area. To keep our white pines compact, denser and help to maintain the shape, I like to pinch or snip two thirds to one half of the new growth which is called the candle each spring. The procedure is called candling. It does a nice job to keep the branches from growing too fast and tightens up the needle and branch spacing.

Watch for a caterpillar that will devour your pines.

Every spring I have to watch for this green caterpillar around the time the Bridal Wreath (Spirea vanhoutei) are in bloom because it will defoliate certain pines in the yard.

The culprit is the Larvae of the Sawfly Wasp. The larvae are gray-green looking about 1 inch long. They love Mugo, Scotch, Red, Jack, Eastern White, Austrian, and Ponderosa pines. They eat the previous season needles, so they won’t kill the tree, but sure make it look like heck. It seems like they can munch a good size tree in a day or two.

I’m sorry to say this but this is one of the few times I will use a pesticide. I use Sevin sprayed just on the larvae, it kills them almost instantly and they drop off. If you have patience you can knock them off by hand or with a stream of water, but they may find their way back and I want to finish the deal, just don’t go crazy with the Sevin. Follow the directions on the package carefully.

Deadheading will help the plant to put energy back in the bulb for next year’s bloom. Letting the foliage wither away and die back on its own will energize the bulb also for next season also. If you need to clean up the bed once the leaves have already turned brown it’s safe to cut them back and put the leaves in the compost pile. I also deadhead peonies and daylilies. After the daylilies have bloomed sometimes the beds start to look spent and old. I have found that after they have bloomed, if you cut the foliage back to the ground the plant will send up new foliage and look fresher for the rest of the summer.

Prune Flowering Bushes:

Spring flowering shrubs should be pruned after they have flowered. Some shrubs may need to be thinned or cut back drastically, while others may benefit from a simple removal of dead flowers and broken or diseased branches.
For our fragrant viburnums I usually only cut off the dead flower ends and cut out the branches that are crossing, dead, or going in the wrong direction. We have one that I need to prune very year to keep it from taking over the area it’s located in. I selectively cut back each branch toward the inside of the shrub trying to do it so it won’t show that it was pruned, and every year it comes back stronger than ever with lots of flowers and full of green foliage. You don’t want to take a hedge trimmer to it and cut all the branches back to the same length. You want the shrub to look as natural as possible.

There is loads of information on pruning on the web and in books that will help you make the right cuts for your shrubs. It’s always a good idea to check it out first.

Spread those wood chips:

Every spring we get a couple truckloads of chips and spread them around our garden paths and flower beds. Doing this in spring works out well because we can see the plants starting to emerge and it’s easier to get in there and spread them around. Chips will act as mulch and will also help retain moisture in the beds for the plants; they also keep the weeds down.