Pruning

Springtime Pruning for Roses & Flowering Shrubs

We’re close to Boulder Valley’s “average last frost” date, and except for being windy and dry, it sure feels like Spring! Lots of gardeners are asking whether it’s safe to prune now, especially roses and shrubs. The answer is YES! But…..

Pay attention to the characteristics of the particular shrubs and roses you’re thinking of pruning. If the shrubs in question won’t be in bloom until summer or fall (for example: Blue Mist Spirea, Rose of Sharon, Russian Sage, Rabbit Brush, Seven Sons, Butterfly Bush, ‘Mongolian Gold’ Bush Clematis), now is a great time to prune them for compact form, removal of winter-kill and dead tips. These shrubs bloom on new (this year’s) wood, so you won’t be diminishing their bloom potential by pruning now. [Read More]

Woody Plant Die-back and Pruning

October 2020 went from record high temperatures in the 80s to record lows, 19 degrees by October 25. May 2021 also made some shocking temperature changes. These rapid and dramatic changes can cause woody plants to die back, lose branches or die completely.

Mikl has been waiting and waiting before pruning this spring, because sometimes our woody plants can leaf out very late. Here is a way to tell when to prune: [Read More]

Clematis Pruning Groups

Despite the access we have right now to our snow-free gardens, in general it’s not time to begin garden clean up. Undoubtedly (hopefully!) we will receive more snowfall in February and March and it is beneficial to keep leaves on the ground and last-year’s stalks on our perennials because this cover provides habitat for overwintering beneficial insects and it helps to keep the plant roots and crowns warmer.

In late February and early March it will be time to cut back certain Clematis vines, depending on their category. Here is an in-depth guide to the three Clematis Pruning Groups. [Read More]

How Do We Manage Fireblight

Colorado is said to be the worst state in the US for fireblight, and 2018 was considered by many to be one of the worst years in Colorado. Fireblight is a serious disease affecting apples, crabapples, pears, Mountain Ash and hawthorn, and sometimes quince and pyracantha (supposedly up to 73 species of plants).[Read More]

Interview with Alex Shigo

Alex Shigo is a world-renowned authority in arboriculture, the science of trees. His delving curiosity and sharp scientific analyses carried him beneath the bark into a realm previously little understood. He worked 26 years for the US Forest Service investigating decay in trees, and through the process of dissecting over 15,000 trees with a chainsaw, he has uncovered much valuable information about tree structures and tree systems that have revolutionized the practice of tree care. As he puts it in the preface to his book Tree Pruning, “A major problem throughout the history of tree pruning has been the scant attention given to pruning as it affects the health of trees, while great attention has been given to pruning as it affects the desires of man.” Even though he is busy writing, giving workshops and talks and doing consulting, he agreed to answer some pressing questions for The Colorado Gardener.[Read More]

Stressed Trees: How to prune and care for them

Trees have it hard in Colorado. If it’s not the shallow and lean topsoil, it’s the low rainfall and low humidity, or it’s the heavy wet late spring or early fall snows, or like last November, it’s the dramatic temperature changes. After a warm and beautiful fall without a killing frost until November 11, we experienced a 77 degree drop in temperature between November 10 and November 12. This was one of the three largest temperature drops ever recorded in the Denver area, the other two were in December 2013 and January 2014.[Read More]

The Pruning and Care of Young Trees

Of all our plants, trees take the longest to develop and so it is not only heart-breaking, but a significant set-back to a landscape when a tree that is 10-20 years old is destroyed in a storm. Many of these disasters could be prevented with proper pruning early in a tree’s life. Besides preventing disasters, pruning trees properly when young will help them to develop more beautifully, make them stronger, less expensive to maintain as they get older and keep them healthier.

A young tree, like any young being, is vulnerable and needs some extra care. And trees are often a costly investment, both for the plant and for the planting. So since few arborists will come out for the fifteen minute job of pruning a young tree, and since few lawn crews are trained in proper pruning, it is good for home-owners to understand the basics of pruning in order to get their trees off to a good start.[Read More]

A Bad Year for Fire Blight

This is a bad year for fireblight which is a bacterial disease which affects mostly apple, pear, crabapple, hawthorn and Mt. Ash. It is spread in the presence of moisture and enters the trees through wounds and open blossoms. Colorado is the worst state in the US for fireblight.

Because of our moist spring and extra wounding caused by hail, there is a lot of infection. Symptoms include black, hooked twig ends, brown or blackened leaves, dried up fruits and sunken cankers that can be a dull orange or black. Fireblight is a difficult disease to manage because there is no cure. Spraying chemicals is not recommended by CSU because they are not very effective, timing is critical and spraying must be repeated.[Read More]

Lilacs in Colorado

Lilacs were brought to America by the earliest settlers and have been very popular landscape shrubs ever since for good reasons. Lilacs are tough, drought tolerant, usually healthy, long-lived, have masses of beautiful flowers and most of them have a delicious fragrance. In dry Colorado air, you have to stick your nose in most flowers to get the smell, but lilacs carry their rich perfume for quite a distance. Like most young boys, I was more interested in bugs than flowers, but my earliest memory of a flower was lying on a grassy hill next to a lilac hedge in full bloom, soothing my spring fever in the sweet, heady fragrance of the common lilac. This powerful aroma is one of the main attractions to lilac and one of the reasons why people forgive other garden qualities like the huge size and habit of suckering. [Read More]

Fireblight: How to recognize it and deal with it (1997)

One of the most damaging and most perplexing diseases of the Front Range is fireblight. It is a bacterial disease affecting apples, crabapples, pears, Mt. Ashes, pyracanthas, quinces, hawthorns and occasionally cotoneasters. Fireblight does not affect cherries, plums, peaches or shade trees.

When the bacterium with the lovely name Erwinia amylovora enters the trees through an opening such as a wound, a pruning cut, the open blossom or leaf pores, the tissues quickly die causing blossoms and leaves and young twigs to suddenly wilt and turn black as if scorched by fire (hence the name “fireblight”). As the bacteria spread through the tissues, secondary infection continues through the season and bark areas die, become sunken and turn black or reddish-orange. These areas are called “cankers”. Sometimes large numbers of leaves turn black but the infection stays confined to small twigs; sometimes entire large branches die; occasionally the entire tree will die.[Read More]

Small Shrubs that Fit In

There has been a lot of interest at our nursery, and in current plant-breeding programs for smaller shrubs. Most of the old-time favorite shrubs are very large. Most lilacs, viburnums, honeysuckles, forsythias, privets, elderberries, serviceberries, butterfly bushes and hibiscus are 6’-12’ high and often as wide. These are great to provide screening and big masses of color along fences or the back of the border.[Read More]

Pruning Article for Boulder Home and Garden

For many people, pruning is the maintenance job they most fear and dread. And it is good to be wary, because a tree that is badly pruned can dominate a landscape with its ugliness for years, can be more prone to breakage and disease, and can have a much shorter life.

Tree and shrub pruning have four basic aspects: the practical or aesthetic interests of the owners, the biology of how trees “heal”, the physics of what makes a branch strong or weak, and the art of how to create beautiful forms.[Read More]