Gardendaze

Pruning just didn’t seem like the right word for what I wound up doing to these Japanese maples–and yet, because they still retain some of their leaves from the fall, all my hard work isn’t all that readily apparent. Suffice it to say that I took 5 cartloads of primarily dead wood out of this one–because after all, it is still a maple so by now, the sap is running. I couldn’t prune it as severely as I would have liked.

Here is my second maple, pre-pruning. It has a sort of “Cousin It” appearance, for those of you old enough to remember the original Addams Family. Still, I prefer that sort of look to the mangled look of the other, caused by the Spoiler’s hedge trimming. Don’t ask.

This was the easier of the two trees to prune. It really just needed the dead wood removed.

Again, I would have liked to cut a few more things, but not with as much sap running in the tree as there was. My timing was bad, but until this weekend we had ice on the ground.

Back to the first–and worst–tree. You can see how that even from inside and underneath the canopy it was really a mess. I did what I could. If I had been able to get to it earlier, I might have been able to get some of the live, crossing branches off the canopy. But with all the sap running, I didn’t want to do that. I may go back next year–if I can get in there when there’s no ice. Timing is always tricky.

But at least the deadwood is gone so I have achieved something.

And here’s the “finished” tree–or as much as I could finish. The dog is thrilled that she can see under it to the street!