The American Horticultural Society Pruning and Training – a Fully Illustrated Plant~by~Plant Manual, by Christopher Brickell and David Joyce, DK Publishing 1996
Garden columns (including ours) have a cavalier way of listing ‘pruning’ as one of the treatments that may benefit a plant. Sometimes they will helpfully add ‘sparingly’ or ‘for shaping’ or ‘immediately after flowering’. However, when one approaches the bush or tree, loppers in hand, it doesn’t always seem so easy. Which branches should I prune? How many? To what degree? Exactly what is ‘shaping’? are some of the questions that have confronted me – and I am sure many other gardeners – when the moment of truth arrives. That is where this book can help.
Unlike many pruning guides – most of which are sections in more comprehensive gardening books – this one gives plant-specific guidance. It has the requisite sections on ‘Basic Techniques’ and ‘Pruning Established Shrubs’ (with better detail and illustration than I’ve seen in other places) but it also has specific recommendations for pruning specific plants. This is a book that you can (and I have, as the dirt-stained pages attest to) take right out into the garden and use as a How-to manual.
For example, if you are wondering why your Flowering Quince is not doing much flowering, take a look under Chaenomeles (all botanical names are cross-referenced in the index) and you will note that this shrub should be pruned in late spring and early summer, after flowering, and that shortening the new growth in summer to five or six leaves improves flowering performance. An illustration makes this easy to follow and understand. Similarly, if your Butterfly Bush (Buddleia davidii) is taking over your garden and you wish that you could just chop it off at the bottom and start over, you will find, after looking it up here, that you practically can. ‘Hard annual pruning produces the best flowers, on vigorous stems’ the authors assure you, and again provide an illustration and a photo to make it absolutely clear. Look up Lavender, Ceanothus and Rock Roses – the list is long - and you’ll see specific instructions for each of those plants. There is a long section on roses, covering climbers, standards and the like. Similarly, there is a special section devoted to fruit trees.
The only caution that I would give to Sonoma County gardeners is that this is not a California book. Like so many garden books, it is East Coast/England-centric – despite the American Horticultural Society’s imprimatur the two authors are English. Thus, there will be a lot of California natives that are not listed. However, the basic tips are so thorough and there are so many other plants included that it is still well worth it.
So get out there and prune your summer flowering (plants that flower on new wood) shrubs and trees now! With this book in hand, you can no longer plead that you don’t know what to do.
©Sonoma County Master Gardeners