Pruned! (Hacked?)

Pruning is one of the most difficult thing for some gardeners to do. I think deep down inside we know it's a good thing for our plants, but it's still hard to cut away growth that we've worked so hard for.

Last year I pruned my Hydrangea 'Limelight' down to about 4 feet tall for the first time. It loved it. It still got about 7 feet tall and full of blooms (it grows in a fair amount of sun and I think it really likes that). I'd prefer to keep the height down just a tad on this particular plant (which I didn't plant in the best spot design-wise) so I pruned it back to about 30 inches this year. I also cleaned up some crossing branches.

I pulled out the awesome Fiskars PowerGear loppers that I won from Genevieve at North Coast Gardening and went after that bad boy. Gen does an awesome review on these loppers, so I won't repeat that here, but I will say that they are so incredibly light (but sturdy) that it makes pruning a much more pleasurable experience. By the way, check out the rest of Gen's tool reviews at NCG and then hang on to your credit card. She hasn't steered me wrong yet!

The garden, which was graced by the dried Limelight blooms all winter, looks a bit bare now, but I suspect Limelight will like me giving it a good haircut. We'll keep and eye on it and see how it's looking in a month or so.

Limelight Before

Limeilght After

By the way, my informal Gardening 101 series over at The Design Confidential continued the other day with a little post on how to start a new garden. You can check it out here.