Prudent pruning

As the summer winds down--indeed, the last weekend of this glorious season is upon us--I glance around my property, and ask myself the question I seem to ask at this time each year: to prune or not to prune? I mentally sift through all the horticultural information jammed into my head, trying to recall exactly which plants need pruning, and at what time of year. Before I frantically reach for my myriad notebooks on the subject, I take a deep breath, and recall the "golden rule" of pruning: Plants flowering before May bloom on "old wood" (buds formed the previous fall); those that bloom after May form buds on "new wood" (this season's growth).

Recalling this, my panic disappears. I've made a note of the early bloomers in my yard: azalea, forsythia, spiraea, dogwood, and viburnum. All these I clip back after they flower. I also have a lovely Magnolia "Stellata," which gets little bursts of white flowers as soon as spring hits. It often blooms before the last frost, so every three-out-of-five years its delicate petals turn brown. Always such a bummer. But on the up side, this lovely early bloomer grows in such a well-mannered way that I think I've only pruned it twice in the past 18 years! Both times I trimmed after it bloomed.

After May, the heavy-hitters in my yard bloom out: the broad leaf and needle evergreens, the roses in June, butterfly bush, and rose of Sharon much later, in mid-summer. All these I can prune in fall, or anytime before new growth starts the following spring.

Always tricky for me: lilacs. I realize most people don't have much difficulty with this plant, but my ignorance of the lilac's propensities has resulted in meager blooming in the past, so I hasten to add this fact: prune lilac plants right after the last flowers have faded. This plant sets next season's flowers almost immediately, and delaying a trim even a week could result in chopping off the next year's buds. When giving a more substantial pruning, take out the entire cane of the lilac you aim to trim (but never more than a third of the plant in total). This is called 'thinning," and it helps strengthen the plant in the long run by encouraging the development of strong new canes.

As for perennials, my butterfly weed, coral bells, Chrysanthemums and perennial grasses get cut back in spring, and nearly everything else gets clipped in fall, including: peony, bearded iris, bee balm (crucial because foliage readily succumbs to powdery mildew), blanket flower, catmint, columbine, crocosmia and day lily.

Obviously, one thing you never want to do is cut off all the foliage, which I've done here:

I'm ridding myself of this plant for good. This weekend I'll take a chainsaw to its roots!