Gardening Tips

Winter is the Best Time for Tree Pruning
Tree care doesn’t end when the frigid months arrive. Winter is always a good time to prune a number of your trees if the temperatures are around 30 degrees or higher. I don’t recommend pruning if it’s considerably below freezing because the wood is brittle and will shatter when you make a cut. One of the advantages of pruning during the winter is that you can see much better what needs to be cut out and what should stay. This is at least true with deciduous plants. The other advantage is that the plants are dormant, and you will have less bleeding of sap. Some trees “bleed” if pruned in late winter or early spring. The “bleeding” is free flowing sap and causes little or no harm to the tree.

Most trees are susceptible to diseases at other times of the year. The risk of introducing a disease to the tree is greatly reduced during the winter months. Oaks should ideally be pruned in December, January, or February to minimize the chance of oak wilt infection. The same guidelines apply to elms. Apples, crabapples, pears, mountain ash, hawthorns, and cotoneasters should be pruned between the time they go dormant in the fall and the time growth starts in the spring. This will minimize the spread and chance of infection of a bacterial disease called fireblight.

Ornamental trees should pruned to remove competing branches. Weeping Cherries, Flowering Dogwoods, Flowering Crabapples etc. have a tendency to send branches in many different directions.

Pines put out a single flush of growth each year and stop. They can only be pruned at the candle stage of growth before the candles become woody. Unless you are removing entire limbs The candle stage occurs in the spring and is characterized by long, light-green ‘candle-looking’ growth at the end of a branch. Pruning at other times of the year will cause dead stubs. If you want dense, compact specimen pines, they should be pruned when the candles are elongated to about three-fourths their length. Up to two-thirds of this new growth can be removed. Pruning should not go into last year’s growth.

Evergreens that grow continuously throughout the growing season can be pruned at any time, but a good rule of thumb is the earlier in the growing season the better. This would include junipers, white cedar or arborvitae, yews, and hemlocks. The time of the year for pruning of spruces and firs is not critical.

Pruning in late winter or before growth starts is the best. Since pruning is vital to the health of a tree, doing a proper job is critical. The pruning cut should leave the branch collar but not leave a stub. The branch collar is the area where the branch enters the main trunk of a tree, it is characterized by a raised ridge most visible in the crotch between branch and trunk. Never prune oaks and elms in April, May and June because there wounds are open to insects and diseases.

Growing Moss on Stones
There are many old wives’ tales on how to get moss to grow on your rocks to give them that aged look but this one actually works quite well. First, gather a few different types of moss and lichen.

Second, use a blender to turn it into a thin paste with one part water and one part buttermilk. You want to make enough to be able to spray a light film all over the rocks that you plan to moss up.

Once you have made you moss smoothie, wash out your blender really well and don’t tell your significant other what you used it for! Third, add your mixture to a pump sprayer and take of the tip to prevent clogging.

Fourth, apply the mixture to the rock with a light coat. Keep you rocks in a cool damp area to allow the moss to spore. After a month you should start seeing your stone come alive with the colors of green moss!