[Scpg] a winter meditation on pruning...

[LBUZZELL at aol.com]

A WINTER  MEDITATION ON PRUNING 
Linda  Buzzell 
Winter and  early spring are the seasons when many gardeners, orchardists 
and farmers --  fancying themselves surgeons -- approach their trees, shrubs 
and roses with  knives, pruning shears and saws in hand, seemingly unaware 
that these plants  are, as the Buddhists would say, sentient beings. 
Most pruning  is less a conversation between two of nature's creatures and 
more an act of  ruthless domination under the guise of necessity. 
For some  reason over the last few millennia we have come to believe that 
plants are  unable to survive, bloom and fruit properly without human 
intervention. And  while much of the painstaking breeding and hybridizing by our 
ancestors has  provided us with an extraordinary variety of edible plants, it 
may be time to  question some of the time-honored Western methods of plant 
care. 
What's  shocking to many people is that scientific research is beginning to 
reveal the  utter lack of necessity for most of the one-sided surgery we 
call pruning.  For example, a British study showed that  rose bushes pruned 
with hedge clippers yielded as many flowers as those  carefully manicured with 
hand pruners - and that roses left alone yielded still  more! 
Where did we  get the arrogant idea that we know better than the plant 
itself how to maximize  its productivity and health? Such a strange notion, when 
you think about it...  perhaps part of the larger delusion that nature is 
here merely for us to exploit  without thought of the damage we may be doing 
to individual living beings or our  biosphere. 
So when might  our pruning interventions actually be helpful rather than 
hurtful? And for  whom? 
The first  principle of permaculture is "observe and interact" - admirable 
advice in the  present instance.  Taking time to  respectfully see how the 
plant itself intends to grow, bloom and fruit allows us  greater insight into 
if, how and when to intervene. 
Vintage  Gardens Nursery's Gregg Lowery,  heritage rose expert 
extraordinaire, points out that mostly we prune for our own  reasons that have nothing 
to do with the plant in question. It's a one way  conversation. For instance, 
we may prune to make a plant look better to our  eyes, our sense of what's 
beautiful or "tidy." Or we may need to prune for  space, when a tree or bush 
begins to outgrow its allotted place - probably  because we made the 
mistake of not allowing for full, natural growth when we  planted it - our error, 
not the plant's! 
Rather than  remove such a plant entirely, we may need to first apologize, 
and then gently  shape it.  Not just to suit our  ideas of aesthetics 
(again, to please us, not the plant), but hopefully to  benefit both the plant and 
our space needs. 
If so, we  might want to observe that traditional pruning times and methods 
were usually  designed for Northern conditions, to protect a tender plant 
from winter frosts.  In a warm-winter climate this isn't necessary, and yet 
many of us who live in  Mediterranean climate zones dutifully hack away at 
our roses in usually-wet  winters, reducing them to stubs and weakening them 
with radical surgery.  In fact, it's usually better to do any  pruning for 
size in the summer if possible, when lack of rain may ensure more  sanitary 
conditions. 
This whole  "do no harm" philosophy of pruning owes a great debt to 
Japanese  philosopher-farmer Masanobu Fukuoka, author of a hugely influential book 
called  One Straw Revolution, who advocated what he called "natural farming" 
or  what some have dubbed "The Zen of Farming," in which we refrain from 
digging,  cutting or intervening unnecessarily in natural soil and plant 
systems which we  truly don't understand. We also may need to refine our view of 
what's beautiful,  to appreciate nature's own gardening style rather than 
the control-heavy  European aesthetic. 
If we do  prune, perhaps we might initiate a respectful dialogue with our 
plants and  trees, rather than a monologue. What might be helpful to the 
plant?  Perhaps the removal of a dead or  diseased limb?  A limb that is  
rubbing against another in the wind?  A sucker from below the graft (if we have a 
grafter plant) that is  draining energy from the top growth?  
Observation  is the key. And listening.  If we  take the time to really get 
to know our plants, they will guide us in our care  for them.
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