Cass Turnbull's Guide to Pruning, 3rd Edition

This 3rd Edition ofCass Turnbull’s Guide to Pruningcovers over 20 additional plants in three new chapters. The result is is the new definitive guide for the home gardener with friendly, expert advice from Cass Turnbull, founder of the Seattle’s Plant Amnesty, whose mission is “to end the senseless torture and mutilation of trees and shrubs caused by mal-pruning.”

Nothing about pruning is obvious. In fact, most of it is downright counter-intuitive. People try to prune plants like they cut lumber or hair. But that doesn't work to get what they want. Your plants are actually telling you how they want to be pruned and where they need to be planted, if you would just learn to listen to your burning bush, (as Moses did, a long time ago, and was glad of it!). Here are my ten commandments for preventing mal-pruning and other gardening sins:

The Ten Gardener Commandments

1. Thou shalt not shear thy bush.
2. Thou shalt not top thy tree.
3. Thou shalt not plant thy sun-lover in the shade, nor thy shade-lover in the sun.
4. Thou shalt mulch.
5. Thou shalt not leave stubs.
6. Thou shalt not flush cut, neither shalt thou paint wounds.
7. Thou shalt not cover up the base of thy plant, or thy tree or thy shrub. Neither with mulch, nor with soil, nor with any landscape material.
8. Thou shalt cut circling/girdling roots.
9. Thou shalt not compact the root zone of thy tree, nor trench near the trunk of thy tree.
10. Thou shalt not weed-whip the trunk of thy tree, nor bash it with thine mower, nor leave anything tied on thy tree or the branches of thy tree, as is done in the land of the philistines

Have you ever seen a tree with a stringy, hairy crop of skinny twigs growing straight up? Those are watersprouts, and they result from bad pruning! Have you ever seen a fir tree that looks like it’s sporting a flattop crew cut? That noble tree has been topped, probably in an effort to preserve someone’s view. Another common sin is to shear low juniper that has grown to encroach the sidewalk; if you do it the obvious (but wrong) way, you end up with a band of dead juniper all along the sidewalk. But with the information inCass Turnbull’s Guide to Pruning, you can approach your trees, shrubs, and other plants with the knowledge to make you plants grow in healthy and aesthetic ways.

The book is organized around the most common types of plants found in Northwest gardens: evergreen and deciduous shrubs; bamboos and tea roses; rhododendrons, camellia and other tree-like shrubs; hedge plants like boxwood and heather; clematis, wisteria and all those vines; and detailed information on trees by species from dogwoods to weeping cherries.

Cass Turnbull is a funny writer with a mission, so mind your shears and loppers!