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Dithering in the Early Spring Garden

© Carol Wallace

It's that time of year again - when, no matter how much more experienced as a gardener I am than I was even last year, I am still reduced to an absolute dither trying to figure out what to do in my yard right now.

First of all, my hands have been absolutely itching to get the pruning shears out for what seems like months. The colored twig dogwoods in the side yard need a good haircut, especially since the drought last year stressed them out, leaving a lot of dead twigs that need removing. Then there's the one my husband ran over with the riding mower - I will need to prune and scrape it a bit to make certain that it even survived.

When I am done with the dogwoods I will almost certainly have a small shopping list to take to the local nursery, since I am almost certain that at least that dogwood didn't make it through winter.

I also hate to cut these dogwoods back because their color is about all the splash that garden area will have for a few more weeks, until primroses and daffodils and tulips get going. But they sustained me with their reds, oranges and yellows through the gray winter, so I must be ruthless - but when?

I also long to prune my roses. I love this job - thinning out the canes, removing anything smaller than a pencil, then looking at branches that cross each other to decide which gets to stay, and then finally cutting them back to a nice shape. This gets rid of all the dead stuff, opens up the bush so it gets air circulation, and gives it a good initial shaping for the season. The climbers get much the same treatment, except there I may remove a few older but major canes in order to leave young flexible ones that I can bed over the arbor. Bending a rose cane so that it goes horizontal instead of vertical will create a lot of lateral branches - and so a lot more flowers.

The trouble is - if I do this too soon, a cold front may come along and undo all my loving labor. Pruning signals the plant that it is time to break dormancy - and so it starts to awaken and send out tender new shoots. A beautiful sight unless the killer cold comes along. Then you get death and destruction, not only of the new growth but of some of the older, carefully shaped stuff as well.