Fun with Clippers, or Plants Don't Cry

Plants Don’t Cry, or Why Pruning Matters

I have spent my entire career and most of my free time staring at plants. I can’t seem to help myself. Driving around the Bay Area I note every stunning tree and hot-looking flower bed. I also see neglect, water stress, and an epidemic of bad pruning. It is easy, with my temperament anyway, to become annoyed. A plant is not supposed to look like an overgrown basketball. Who is doing this stuff? And why? Yikes, some people have no more business all up in your shrubbery that I would, if I called myself a dentist and began poking at your teeth.
Recently I went to see a former client. As we stepped into the back yard she casually mentioned “The garden was overgrown, so my husband hired someone to cut it all back.” So warned, I was still unprepared for what I witnessed that day. For I came upon a scene of such carnage, such utter ineptitude and callous insensitivity, I was shocked speechless. Virtually every plant in the garden; tree, shrub and perennial, deciduous or evergreen, spring, summer or winter-flowering, monocot or dicot, woody or herbaceous, had been cut. Cut exactly the same way and exactly the same amount, as if some Robot from Hell had been put on automatic pilot with a stopwatch and a pair of hedge trimmers. Many of the shrubs had been set back years. But it is the design of the garden as a whole that suffered most. No dynamism, no flow, just a series of semi-rounded clumps of plant matter; denuded, humiliated, lifeless. Made more poignant by the fact that much brown dead stuff was still clinging to what was left of the branches and blades. For whoever the culprits were, they had neglected the number one rule of pruning- first, remove all the dead stuff.

Don’t let this happen to you. Here are a few simple facts for do-it-yourselfers and those who don’t:
Most perennials and many ornamental grasses appreciate being cut back seasonally; in the Bay Area that usually means before the rains or after the rains. Check your Western Garden Book. Deadheading is always good. Weeding is always good. Installed as a 5-gallon plant, most slow-to-moderately-growing shrubs will not need pruning for a year or more beyond taking off dead material and watching for crossed or crowded branches. Eventually, pruning for shape and size must happen.

If you want to prune your shrubs, first determine when and how they bloom. Spring-flowering shrubs should be pruned after blooming; if they are pruned now, you will lose next season’s blossoms. Summer and fall-flowering shrubs should be pruned in spring. Always use clean, sharp tools and follow this general formula. First, remove everything dead or diseased, cleanly and at an angle to the main trunk or just above the leaf node. Many older canes should be cut all the way to the ground. Second, cut out any branches that are crossing into the plant blocking light and air flow or rubbing against other branches. You want to allow air and sunlight to the center of the plant and a nice, v-shape. Unless, of course, you want a hedge, which is another discussion. Third, cut for shapeliness, size and beauty. Take your time and walk away often. Have a look from the patio, from the street. Does your shrub seem to be doing what it was meant to do? Don’t be timid, but do be observant. When in doubt, you can probably look it up on line. Or call in a professional. Ask questions, get references, and remember that thoughtful and expert pruning takes time. Don’t hire anyone who tells you otherwise.


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I want to be a minimalist when I grow up.

Lacy planted this Wisteria on her fence about 10 years ago. We always just let it go crazy until after it blooms, squeezing out of the car amidst buzzing bees and falling petals...below is a row of Naked Ladies, clothed for winter.

I took this Hellebore home from a clients' yard a few years ago. It’s a cutie.

A crazy-pink Pierus. Like, insane.

Every year we vow to take out this Hardenbergia --is one month’s glory worth a hideous green tangle for the rest of the year?? And then the Euphorbia blooms against that purple and we give it another reprieve.

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YardSquawk Take One.

I really didn't plan it this way, to start my new business mid-recession, but that is what happened anyway. The Yard Squad is up and running and ready to spread the word.

I started Cfly Design, years ago, alone and with no capital. I hauled rock, laid flagstone, raked yards and yards of soil. I didn't do everything right, but I thought hard every day about every thing big and small that I could do to make this garden, this client's yard, better, prettier, more livable and then did it if I could. There was so much to know. I thought I'd never be good enough. I felt I hardly knew what I was doing sometimes- but I always knew what I wanted to accomplish. My gardens got better and better, and I learned quite a few things. About plants, design, project management, crews, stones, pruning, weather, slope, crappy Bay Area soil. The decision to start the Yard Squad comes directly from things I learned that are my guiding principles, things I have become passionate about. Starting with my two favorite words:

1) LEVEL. I believe that noone wants to hang around in a yard that tilts. If it's level, they will come. OK, sometimes there has to be slope- just not where you sit.
2) FLOW. I believe that noone wants to hang out in a yard they can't get to, and can't wander around in.

I want garden inhabitants (trying to find a better word for "clients"- Garden users? Garden Guardians?) I want my clients, when we are finished, to be able to carry a full Martini from one end of the garden to another. To do this you need it to be LEVEL. And you need to have FLOW.

I believe everyone can- no, should- have good design.
I believe sustainalility can have flowers.
I believe the big companies waste a lot of money.
I believe paying me to spend 3 hours pruning your 20-year-old Wisteria is not wasting money.
I believe there is way too much bad pruning.
I believe a Camellia shouldn't look like a Mushroom.
I believe in crisp, perfect hardscapes and riotous planting beds.
I believe in Walt Whitman Compost Mix.


Later, Cathy
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