Signs of spring

We've entered what I call the season of multiple costume changes here. In the morning, I put on warm pants and my winter coat to take the dogs for a walk. Shortly after we get home, I exchange the coat for a fleece pullover. An hour or two later, I'm in a long-sleeve shirt and lighter pants. Afternoon requires changing into shorts and a T-shirt, and by 7:00 pm, I'm back in warm pants and long sleeves. I can't sufficiently explain why this irritates me a bit. I think it has something to do with my aversion to being overly fussy and to the extra work of removing clothes from their appropriate storage place and quickly putting them back...and potentially taking them out again. It goes against my deepest desire to simplify.

But these frequent costume changes also signal our gradual shift toward longer and warmer days and all the wonderful opportunities they present, so I will weather them (pun intended) as best I can. We're seeing other signals of that shift around here—like the young mahogany leaves of the rose bushes popping out all around the property. Those leaves are another good visual reminder to finish the pruning jobs as soon as possible.

It's time to cut back the Buddleia (butterfly bushes), a task I remember first undertaking 20 years ago when I was developing a deep curiosity in gardening. I read somewhere that it was important to cut Buddleia down to 12" in early March, so I dutifully (and somehow without trepidation) went out and did just that. I had planted the shrubs in front of our deck landing the previous year, and they had performed well, but after that first deep pruning, they were outstanding. People driving past our house would often stop and ask what I did to make them so magnificent. I answered with deep uncertainty, "I pruned them hard in March?" With each passing year, however, I became more convinced that it was the only way to set them up for success. So this week, the Buddleia will go from their current height of 9' tall back to 12".

Eden after an unruly winter (The blue structure below now has two holes in the top because a tall man stood on top...and then fell through!)

Last week, I got to grips with the climbing Eden rose that grows just outside the pool gate and below the landing to my studio. It's such a vigorous grower that the annual prune requires a good hour to get it back into shape. I've attached most of its canes to a sizeable trellis we built onto the two support posts for the landing, and I've woven other canes through the balusters of the pool fence. Then there are a couple of unruly ones that I just allow to reach for the sky. At the end of a season, though, Eden is a sprawling, slightly raggedy mess.

Eden in all her glory last season

The reason for this careful tying and weaving in is simple: more blooms. Roses are interesting specimens. You see, they bloom just on their tips—well, they do if you just let them grow like a regular shrub. But if you force the canes horizontally (by tying them to a trellis or weaving them through a fence), a rose can't tell where the tip of the cane is exactly, so it sends up shoots all along the length of the cane and then blooms on the end of each. With the Eden rose, we really can create a wall of roses.

You can do this with shrub roses as well by simply tying a length of jute twine around the end of a long new cane and tying the other end of the twine to a peg and driving it into the ground. You can create lovely arcs with the canes if you're careful. You don't want to be rough with them during the process or put them under too much pressure, though. They'll crimp if you do. But with the right coaxing, they'll take to their new position well.

The final structure

To get Eden in shape this year, I removed anything dead, dying, rubbing against another branch, extending well beyond the end of the trellis, or just too challenging to tie in (sometimes there are too many canes in one area, and they would limit the airflow). There was a lot of new growth that I had to manage, and to do that in some places, I had to cut last year's twine to release a cane and tie it lower on the trellis so that a new cane could take its place higher up.

What we now have is a much more uniform coverage of the trellis, so I believe we'll get an even more impressive display. There's also a wonderful cane shooting up to the studio steps, so I'll be tying its branches in along the stringers. I can already see myself in the coming months walking up the steps with roses just below my feet—and what could be better than that?

Pruning season in full swing

I'm not sure I'll ever get a good handle on time. Sometimes, it seems to be dragging along at a snail's pace, and other times, the days go by so quickly that I worry I've missed one or two. And so it is with the garden—in January, I'm sowing seeds in the laundry room every day and feeling so ahead of the game, and by late February, I'm panicking that I won't get everything done before the growing season takes off. The task that's consuming me these days is pruning countless plants before the first (or maybe second) week of March.

I've gotten through all of the Clematis group 3 pruning, but now I'm fretting over the group 2 vines and a whole host of other things. I mentioned that I have 12 Clematis vines on the property, but I haven't yet confessed to 12 climbing and shrub roses (and I don't count the two bushes that were here when we moved in). They're really starting to put on new shoots, so I'll have to pull on my gauntlets and get those taken care of this week.

A few of the countless buds on the Methley plum

But first, the fruit trees need my attention. I noticed yesterday that the plum trees are now covered in flower buds, so getting them back in shape took first priority this morning. Luckily, I took a lot off of them last year to get them into the prescribed goblet shape, so the work this morning only took about 15 minutes. For some reason, I always dread pruning the plum trees, which is a bit ridiculous because it's such wonderfully meditative work—I just forget year after year how happy it makes me.

Two flowers have already opened

This morning, I felt so peaceful working with the trees, following their branches and finding those that were damaged or rubbing and selecting where I needed to make a cut. It was an intimate time with two beautiful specimens, and the results are so satisfying. I've given them the attention they need to stay healthy, and they'll reward me in the coming weeks with beautiful blossoms and maybe—fingers crossed—a bumper crop of fruit. Want to learn about pruning plum trees? Check out this article.

I'll also be taking care of my group 2 Clematis vines this week, and I started this morning with 'Bourbon' because it always takes the "first to bloom" prize among the Clematis. I felt a little daunted by the task when I first stood in front of Bourbon to assess what I should do because she was a shaggy mess.

'Bourbon' before the cut

Group 2 vines require a careful approach, as they bloom on last year's growth. It's important to remove enough to provide good ventilation, but you don't want to cut so much that you end up losing a lot of blooms. It's a bit challenging to trace every stem there's a tangle of them, so I started by gently tugging at the thickest areas. This helped loosen a lot of the stems that had broken off but had been hung up among the others. I trimmed some stems down to the highest bud, and I lifted a section that had flopped over itself and carefully wove the stems through the fence. Finally, I found a lot of stems that had been scrambling across the ground, and I think I'll create a way to lift their heads off the ground but keep them low so I'll have an interesting display at the base of the plant. There may be some chicken wire sculpting ahead for me in the next few days.

Clematis 'Bourbon' breathing easy

I feel pretty good about what I accomplished with this one, and I'm looking forward to seeing that first shock of deep fuchsia that often peeks through the vine on the backside of the fence. That's the signal that Bourbon will soon provide a wall of flowers that will draw my attention every time I step outside the back door.

On to the roses...

How to prune Clematis vines (group 3)

It's mid-February here, which means it's time to start pruning all manner of things around the farm. First on the list are all of my Clematis group 3 plants. Clematis is a favorite genus of mine—a quick accounting in my head reveals I've somehow collected a total of 12 vines (so far). Although it's strictly a climbing plant, with over 350 species available, it's incredibly versatile. You can find some that grow just 4–6 feet tall, others that will scramble wildly to the top of a tree, and others that grow every height in between. Plus, there's a wonderful diversity of flower shapes, sizes, and colors. Now that I'm thinking about the wide array of options available, it seems reasonable to think that having 12 vines is really more restrictive than excessive. Perhaps I should look for a few more...

But wait, I need to avoid being distracted by the Brushwood Nursery website again and give you a good overview of the various Clematis groups and how to prune group 3 Clematis in particular. I'll address the other groups in another post.

Each specific variety of Clematis will fall into one of three groups. Generally speaking, group 1 vines flower in late winter/early spring on the growth of the previous season. They're some of the easiest to manage because they don't require pruning, though you can cut them back just after they've bloomed if you want to keep them in bounds or you see damaged stems. Group 2 vines commonly have large flowers. They'll take a pruning in February and after they're finished with their first bloom, and then they'll reward you with a second flush of flowers (again, more on them in the next post).

Group 3 vines produce flowers on the current season's growth, so it's really important to cut them back well before they get underway. They usually flower later in the season, but here in zone 8a, they bloom in early April, and we often get a second flush in the fall. So essentially, they don't exactly follow the "rules" when it comes to their bloom time, but it's really important to follow the rules of pruning them at the right time. It's a powerful lesson I've learned from experience.

Clematis 'Huldine' front view

You see, I have a magnificent Clematis 'Huldine' vine that grows on an antique ladder leaning against our dining pavilion. The position is ideal for this variety in particular because Huldine has a distinctive front and back. From the sidewalk, we get to see the glistening white sepals (petals) on the front side, and while we're hosting friends for dinner outdoors, we all get to

admire the gorgeous lavender pinstripes on the back side. It puts on quite a show, and that's why I decided a couple years ago to just let Huldine grow unchecked. I wanted it to climb up the ladder and across a chain I hung across the front of the dining pavilion, so I didn't prune it.

The stunning back side of Clematis 'Huldine'

It did grow just as I wanted, but the growth was so thick that the ladder essentially became a sail. A good gust of wind could blow the ladder down, ripping the vine away from the chain and potentially damaging the entire plant. It did that twice, and then I had to tie the ladder to the nearest post of the pavilion.

I thought that would be the end of my problems, but the next season, as a result of a very wet spring and extremely poor ventilation for the leaves (again, due to my willful negligence), it developed powdery mildew. The leaves were decidedly unappealing, and the flowers were stunted.

'Huldine' before the prune

So this year, I decided to put my full faith in Huldine's ability to put on vigorous growth in one season that will provide abundant blooms but not so much growth that its susceptible to disease or other "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

Here's how I did it. First, I started at the base of the plant and scanned each stem beginning at the 12-inch mark. For the thickest stem, I cut it back to the first swelling buds I found nearest the one-foot height. Now, with a rose, you make your cuts at an angle, but with a Clematis, you need to cut straight across because you'll find the buds are horizontally across from each other on a stem. If you cut diagonally, you'll surely sacrifice a bud.

Once I established that lower starting point for the first stem, then I started looking a little higher on the next stem and cut where I found new shoots around the 18-inch mark. I kept that pattern going until I made the last cut on the final stem around the five-foot mark. Then I started pulling everything that was no longer attached to the plant away from the ladder, loading it into my wheelbarrow, and taking it up to the compost bins.

'Huldine' after the prune

What I'm left with is a set of stems that gradually slope upward, and that should give Huldine the ability to flush out and flower from the bottom of the ladder to the top and to breathe easily. I've taken that same approach to my other group 3 Clematis all around the property.

If you're not sure what group your Clematis falls into, just run a quick search online. I usually have to remind myself what some of them are, so I just type in something like "What group is Clematis Josephine in?"

So, now it's time to give your secateurs (they're pruning clippers, but "secateurs" sounds so much nicer) a good cleaning and sharpening and get out there! Your group 3 Clematis vines will surely reward you for it with a brilliant display in the coming months.