Joyful Unwinds

Day 15: My Adeniums were getting too leggy, so it was with great trepidation that I decided to prune one back in the hopes that it would sprout a new "head." Typically, the showy, large-flowered Adeniums sold by nurseries are grafted plants, hybrid stems grafted onto sturdier rootstock, much like what is done with fruit trees. I was careful not to take it back as far as the graft (pretty obvious, really), and then sat back to see if my experiment was going to be successful before jumping in to prune all the plants. I covered the cut with candle wax to ensure against rot or disease, and was heartened when six months later, a tiny leaf bud appeared just below the waxed tip. Leaves developed over the next several months, and then when the plant's blooming time arrived, it put out a few buds. Emboldened by my success, I pruned the other two plants, one "head" at a time over the seasons. Now all my Adeniums are under a foot tall, and each stem has its "Tina Turner" hairdo of leaves at the top of otherwise bare sticks, and all have bloomed again. "Joyful" is unwinding its pink minaret even as I write.

Celebrate Figginess!

Day 309: Celebrate the figginess! The first two didn't even make it into the house. I ate them while I was standing next to the tree, pinching others which weren't quite ripe yet. There are lots! And by "lots," I mean at least two dozen which will come to full maturity, the first real crop my Desert King has produced. Pruning note: these grew exclusively on last year's wood. I had thought this variety produced on new wood, but every fig is on year-old twigs. That means when I prune it to keep figs within easy reach, I should leave some current growth (i.e., this year's new wood) because it will bear fruit next year. Pruning is a fine science; not all plants can be pruned the same way (and I have to admit I have never mastered the fine art of grape pruning). In any event, I won't prune this year because the tree is only about six feet tall. Maybe next year, I'll have enough to make fig butter. These, I'm just going to eat fresh off the tree.

Bush Fruits

Day 207: Last year, I did a lot of reading on the subject before taking the pruning shears to my currants (left) and gooseberries (right). Each requires a different method to produce the best crops. Apparently I did the job correctly, becaue both are loaded with flowers and, as you can see, some of the ovaries (the fruit) are already swelling. Currants bear most heavily on 2-3 year old wood, less on older stems. Old wood must be pruned out and half a dozen new non-bearing shoots should be preserved to bear the following year. Gooseberry stems, on the other hand, may be allowed to bear for three years before pruning out the old wood. New shoots should be thinned to 2-4 to maintain the bearing cycle. If you have trouble distinguishing the ages of the stems, you can code each year's growth with coloured surveyor's tape. Keep good records, and enjoy an abundance of "bush fruits" as jam and jelly.

Vancouver Sea Breeze

Day 234: Clematis "Vancouver Sea Breeze" is one of the principle focus pieces in the motley assemblage of plants I call my "garden." Saucer-sized flowers simply cover the vine once it's fully open, but even in the early days of its blooming cycle when it has more buds than blossoms, it's still a show-stopper.

The secret to success with Clematis is knowing what "group" defines a specific species. Group I plants are spring bloomers and should be cut back immediately following flowering. The plant will then put on new growth. This will be the wood which will develop blossoms the following spring. Group II plants are repeat bloomers, flowers emerging from both new wood and old. These can be pruned after the first flush of bloom in the spring, but care should be taken not to remove all old wood in order to ensure continued flowering throughough the summer. Vancouver Sea Breeze is a Group II species. Group III plants are the easiest of all: simply cut the vine back to 12-18" in early spring if you want to keep growth confined, or just let the vines wander at will for a massed display through summer and fall.

Not The Grape-est Harvest

Day 10: Pruning grapes is an art I have yet to master. My fishing buddy's brother-in-law Eddie tried to teach me, but his instructions were so heavily inflected with swear-words and backtracking (amusingly so) that I was never able to pick the principle out of the verbal detritus. I've succeeded in getting a good crop two or three times, but it's been only by sheer luck or accident. I know that grapes fruit on last year's new wood, but identifying it in winter is not as easy as it sounds, and I usually resort to simply leaving two nodes on every cane regardless of its age. While in principle you might think that would result in a success rate of 50%, it never seems to do so. Admittedly, weather plays a role and our cool early summer may have come at the wrong time to set fruit, but I really had to hunt high and low among the leaves to find a second cluster of grapes equivalent to this pitiful offering.

Lilac Time

Day 190: With almost all sunlight blocked by an enormous branch of the big Doug fir at the end of my carport, my lilac had gone leggy and seldom produced more than a few weak blooms. I'd read in a gardening book that lilacs could be brought back to their former vigour by drastic pruning, but the article also counselled patience, saying that it would take at least four years for a plant to "bush out" again. I enlisted a neighbour's help to shorten the fir branch, and then with some trepidation, hacked the lilac back to a two-foot high stump. That was about ten years ago, and for at least the first two years, I considered digging it out and starting over in a new location. I resisted the temptation, and at last my patience has been rewarded. The lilac has thirteen lovely lavender flower clusters this year. That said, I will never prune it again!