How I love to prune

Today I spent two very happy hours pruning a hedge of Jasminum beesianum, Roses, Honeysuckle and Clematis.  This was not for a Zinnia Horticulture job, but in my own garden.  I moved to a new house in January with a garden that comes close to being my dream garden (if there were a few acres for animals it would be).  There are some incredible mature plants, including a pergola with a Grape vine and Wisteria I think could be 20 years old.  Both are in need of serious pruning and the Wisteria flowers were disappointing, but we’ve had buckets of grapes.   It is a job we will have to tackle later in the year when the fruit has gone.

Nothing in the garden has been properly pruned or trained in many years including the hedge and I have been looking forward to starting to get things under control.  I could not identify the Clematis this year because it was lost behind the Rose, but I have chosen to take it right back.  When the new shoots show in the spring I can train them forward to flower to the front of the hedge.  I have tried to identify the rose, but until we came to this garden I had no interest in roses and there are a number of possible plants it could be.  It is a dark almost florescent pink that fades to a lighter shade.  In my garden it has reached about 10ft tall with an 8-10ft spread and it repeat flowers. 

There are many reasons why I love pruning.  It is a job I can become lost in.  I see it as a reverse puzzle because, with each branch I take out, I can see the ones which need to follow.  It is not a strenuous job, so on a day when I want to take on something more relaxing (by which I mean more relaxing than digging over the vegetable plot or putting in a pond) it is ideal. I think I like to restore order, but I also like the promise held in a pruned plant when the job is done.  It might look rather bare, but of course in the next season the new growth will be fresh and the overall result much better.

In my garden there will always be something to be pruned and I am going to have ample opportunity to indulge myself.