One of the MANY promises I made to myself this winter was to be more “experimental” this gardening season. Take some chances, be a little fearless and make sure to document the results through “before” and “after” photos.
Well, today was the day I put my big boy underwear on, grabbed my pruner and started the experimental … um … experiment.
Before I get into things, I have to first share an article/blog post I read this past weekend that was a huge inspiration for what I accomplished today. Noted author, Nancy Ondra, wrote an incredibly in depth piece on cut-back shrubs which you can read here. It is filled with amazing photos and detailed “how-to’s”.
So, today’s victim subject was Weigela ‘Wine and Roses’:
I have three of these and decided to prune one severely:
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| Before |
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| After |
Selectively pruned another:
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| Before |
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| After |
And left one as is:
It felt good to get outside and in the dirt and to have the pruners in hand once again. And it felt invigorating to play around with varying pruning techniques. I will be watching each of these shrubs intently over the next few months and will be sure to share the results along the way.
I may have sacrificed these in the name of experimentation:
But ultimately, I am after the beautiful foliage color these offered when they were a bit younger:
Let the fun begin!
John
Pruning is fun for me. I pruned my butterfly bush to the ground and it looks fabulous now. I prune certain things in Feb/Mar here in Ga. and some flowering shrubs right after they bloom, like camellia, quince, and climbing roses. Joe and I pruned all our shrubs Saturday and that was an all day job. I am learning as I go with our new yellow house and I read garden books for help. Keep us posted!
I have a few Wiegela (borderline here) I will be interested to see how they bounce back.
I also wanted to make sure you saw my comment on your “Signs of new plant growth” post. Just wanted you to know what your little stripped friend was before you killed him 🙂
If I were a betting woman, I’d bet on the severely pruned ~ whatever it is. Living in Texas we don’t have anything like that, you know! But we have lots of beautiful flowers bushes and I say cut it off!
laughing at kathy above. as a fellow texan, i don’t know much about severe pruning or lush gardening for that matter. i worry about remembering to water around the foundation and keep the few shrubs we have alive… i bet you pruning will have fruitful results!
Thanks for visiting my blog! Great blog you have here!!!
How great to have three of the same plant so you can do an experiment like this.We’ll all be watching what happens. Thanks for visiting my blog today.. Balisha
How lucky you are to have three of the same type of shrubs for your experiment! The foliage color is gorgeous.
I had the same weigelas all along the garage at my last house. I did prune them each year but after flowering. I can’t remember exactly when they flowered. If it was summertime, you ae fine pruning them in the spring, still time to set buds.
I am some miniature ones now called Dark Horse, they look so small, I can’t imagine much coming from them this year!
Eileen
I’ll be interested to see what happens!
I just pruned my shrub dogwoods. I have the feeling they will not look anywhere as nice as your “experiments” will….
Quite the hair cut you gave that first one. That is what I do do my hydrangeas every year! They seem to love it.
You are going to love the way the hard pruned shrub looks. A shot of 10-20-10 and look out!!
Good luck getting the results you want from your pruning! Surely at least one approach will pay off. I was very cautious when pruning my crabapples this spring, but they’re only a few years old so there’s plenty of time to cut more branches out. Sadly, I had to be aggressive with the rose pruning with so much winter kill.