Transcript
Brett: Thank you.
Alexis: Okay, I feel like it's getting to the time of year where I like to have a lot of grab-and-go snacks, but I don't want them to be like super bad for me snacks. mean, I want them to be, but I don't need them to be super bad for me snacks, right?
Plant People: Well, first of all, you said it's getting to be that time of the year. Is it ever not that time of year for grab-and-go snacks?
Brett: Yeah.
Alexis: Well, I just mean these ones are eaten outside.
Plant People: I want to, want to, like, like oh, you're talking about walking snacks.
Alexis: like i mean, the I emphasize the go.
Brett: Oh, gotcha.
Plant People: You're talking about walking snacks.
Alexis: Yes, walking snacks, yes.
Plant People: Okay, gotcha, gotcha.
Alexis: I'm talking on the go more.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Port-a-snacks, sure.
Alexis: Yeah, yeah. So walking snacks. i like I like that because car snacks, I feel it could be a little bit different than walking snacks. Okay, so it's ah it's a time here where we're outside a lot and you just sometimes need to come in for a snack, but you need to go right back outside.
Plant People: Hmm?
Alexis: So I need a good walking snack. And I'm curious on what your all's walking snacks are. And I feel like this is something important for all of our listeners who are also outdoorsy people, and they may need a new inspiration for walking snacks.
Alexis: Okay.
Brett: Creme brulee.
Plant People: Yes.
Alexis: Listen, don't have time for your sass today, okay?
Jessica : o
Plant People: Very portable.
Jessica : Yes. that's That's my go-to, Brett.
Plant People: Very portable.
Jessica : all Every time.
Plant People: Creme brulee. Flame it up. Just flame it up.
Brett: With a cloth napkin.
Jessica : do yeah Do you like to toast it before you go?
Alexis: i I'll tell you my current obsession, if that's helpful for you, to inspire you towards your walking snack.
Jessica : Okay.
Alexis: um I cut off a piece of a block of Parmesan cheese. Just like a little cube-y Parmesan cheese.
Plant People: Okay. European of you.
Alexis: Because it's like, you know, it doesn't fall apart. It's real solid. And I grab usually like a clementine or an apple. It's like a little charcuterie board in my hand. And a couple crackers if we have crackers on hand and I can fit it all.
Alexis: Usually in one hand and then I have a hand free to open doors and stuff like that. So that's my current walking snack like go to.
Plant People: Hmm.
Brett: I am not a walking snacker.
Alexis: Well, listen, good for you and being a person who takes time Oh, as you should.
Brett: No, I mean, it's not a judgment thing. I think it's it's an inflexibility issue of mine.
Jessica : As a pregnant lady, i have snacks.
Plant People: What if...
Alexis: oh
Plant People: Oh, here we go.
Jessica : I have snacks everywhere currently.
Plant People: Pro. Yeah.
Alexis: ah and she should
Jessica : I'm trying to think what would be my walking snack. Well, you know, you take like little cutie oranges and you just eat them as you go.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : And then you can just toss the pill wherever you don't have to worry about your trash that way.
Alexis: yeah it's awesome it's awesome
Jessica : don't know.
Brett: No, actually, I don't know.
Alexis: the other one I like that may be kind of fringe I don't know maybe not is you know the like ah art um the the fake crab as we call it right it's the imitation crab yeah the imitation crab legs right they're like they're good protein there's not a ton of like sugar or fat and everything in them and they're like
Jessica : You don't know.
Plant People: Imitation, wannabe crab, wannabe crab meat.
Jessica : um yeah
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: Oh, there's a lot of sugar in there. have you ever looked at the carbs in imitation crab?
Alexis: Yeah, but not in comparison to like a granola bar is what I'm talking about.
Plant People: It's amazing.
Jessica : Don't just just don't don't comment.
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah, no.
Alexis: not So that's my other walking snack because I need like something to keep me satiated.
Plant People: Just let her have this. Let her have this.
Plant People: I don't know about seafood as a walking snacks.
Brett: That is... I have...
Plant People: that That surprises me.
Brett: um
Plant People: And this is coming from someone that likes gas station food. That surprises me as a walking port-a-snack.
Alexis: Yeah, yeah, why not?
Plant People: Yeah. I mean, yeah i love that.
Alexis: With your little hunk of cheese?
Jessica : Well, you get a lot of like beef sticks, like the little meat sticks.
Plant People: I love your style. I do. I like your style.
Alexis: I mean...
Plant People: I was thinking, you know, yeah. on muslim
Alexis: yeah
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : not as I mean, it could be a Slim Jim.
Alexis: It's a seafood meat steak.
Plant People: my My original walking snack, which, you know, if I'm like walking in the woods for an extended period of time, like it can't be like a chocolate candy bar that I love.
Jessica : Yeah.
Plant People: You know, back before you had all the protein or complete meal bars and all that fanciness, it was always a payday because they are so stable, even under heat and time.
Alexis: o
Alexis: Okay.
Jessica : oh
Alexis: Okay.
Jessica : They don't like melts.
Plant People: And we we all carried paydays because they stuck together under abuse in a backpack or a rail pack.
Alexis: Yeah.
Plant People: And they were just as good being crushed under heat and cold.
Brett: Wow.
Plant People: They were so consistent. It was a payday candy bar. Now, if I was working, i mean, that that' that take it to the bank.
Alexis: That's real talk right there.
Plant People: They're cheaper than like the really expensive...
Alexis: Literally take your payday to the bank.
Plant People: Yes. To the bank. Take that payday to the bank.
Brett: Wow.
Plant People: Very nice.
Brett: Thank you.
Jessica : Yeah.
Plant People: But if I was on the farm, my walking snack always was one thing because I could sit in the dashboard of the truck.
Alexis: Pork rinds.
Plant People: Close. the Vienna sausages.
Alexis: Peas feet.
Jessica : Spanish sausages.
Brett: Oh, man.
Alexis: Oh, Vienna sausages.
Jessica : Oh, man.
Plant People: Or Viennese for those aficionados.
Alexis: Vianney. Vianney.
Plant People: the root For the real people, Viennese.
Brett: By Annie's.
Plant People: Vienna sausages. if I was, I don't know, I grew up with those. And my accompaniment to that would have been just a pack, a sleeve of crackers. A sleeve of crackers will do, an yeah, it's perfect ratio.
Alexis: Salting crackers.
Jessica : Right.
Jessica : Or like, what do you do you guys call them nabs?
Alexis: ah Salt because you're sweating.
Jessica : Do you call them nabs?
Plant People: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Jessica : Right. Because some people don't know like what you're talking about.
Plant People: Like Cheez-It type stuff.
Jessica : Yeah, like were there the like peanut butter crackers or like...
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: this Pack of peanut butter crackers.
Brett: yeah.
Jessica : Yeah, those.
Alexis: Yeah, that's our that's our fish and scent.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : But yeah, that's a fishing snack.
Plant People: Cheddar.
Alexis: but
Jessica : um Ray, you got me thinking though. Now I'm thinking like diaper bag and the stuff you carry in. ah Certain crackers do not do well. Nutri-grain bars do not do well in a bag.
Plant People: Yep. They smash up.
Brett: oh yeah
Alexis: Nature.
Jessica : ah They smash.
Alexis: There's a particular brand of granola bar that just falls apart.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : oh
Plant People: The crubs everywhere bars, they do not work well.
Jessica : For this part.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : um You know... You gotta have something that holds up, right? For your walking snack.
Plant People: You do. And then that's a prerequisite. That's the main thing for me is I don't like to eat stuff mushy that's not supposed to be so. Crème brûlée aside, Brett, whatever. But yeah, Payday Candy Bars, it's an OG. It's the real OG. Yeah.
Brett: So before we jump into what we're going to talk about, I just need to circle back to Alexis eating imitation crab meat.
Jessica : It has nothing to do with what we're...
Brett: Is that something that you, did you see that somewhere or did you just, you just,
Plant People: I'm glad you're circling back.
Jessica : Are you walking with like Like...
Alexis: I grew up doing it.
Jessica : you
Alexis: My mom bought it. I grew up eating that.
Brett: I like just, just as like, like in like how some people eat beef jerky.
Plant People: In a portable sense.
Jessica : in It's in stick form, right?
Alexis: Yeah.
Jessica : Because they they they because they sell it for like sushi.
Alexis: yeah there's there's like a flake Yeah, there's like a flake form too that's like still like big like chunks.
Jessica : Uh-huh.
Brett: huh.
Plant People: Maybe that's what I'm thinking of.
Brett: And so this is ah another type of fish that is made to look like it's crab meat.
Plant People: if like
Alexis: Right.
Jessica : Right.
Alexis: Right.
Brett: I have literally never heard of someone just just raw, just raw dogging that.
Alexis: And it's cooked, obviously.
Plant People: I mean, I love this stuff. Don't get me wrong, but we put it in a different kind of arena.
Jessica : I know. It's...
Alexis: It's good at protein and stuff.
Brett: I'm not criticizing.
Plant People: is. It's very good.
Brett: I, i
Alexis: I mean, it kind of sounds like you're criticizing.
Plant People: I love it.
Brett: I love it because it's very rare that you just that you hear something that you've just never heard before.
Plant People: It's incongruent with your perceptions of reality.
Brett: Like a new.
Alexis: My mom bought it when and growing up because she had, wheat we, you know, gri a farm she needed walking snacks.
Brett: Sure.
Alexis: And so she like wanted high protein stuff.
Plant People: Suddenly.
Alexis: And that was,
Brett: That makes me curious to our audience. Drop in a comment, email us, let us know if that's something else that you do, because I mean, I had plenty of weird things and strange things.
Alexis: yes.
Jessica : Yeah.
Plant People: Well, Brett, you thought you were fringe. You're not fringe, Brett.
Brett: And what's that?
Plant People: No, I say you, you're not fringe.
Alexis: yeah
Plant People: I thought you were going to be the fringe in the conversation. You are not even towards the edge.
Brett: Oh no, Alexis blew me off the map.
Alexis: He was like, I eat siren.
Plant People: Yes, you did get blown off of the chart.
Brett: Just eating eating loose imitation crab meat on the go.
Plant People: The X, Y axis has been redefined.
Alexis: that's
Plant People: Yes. Yeah. I feel much better about my gas station sushi now.
Alexis: I didn't even realize that it was like something in, you know, some sort of sushis and like that kind of things until I was much older.
Brett: um Unbelievably good.
Plant People: I mean,
Jessica : yeah oh you just thought it came like in a stick form and you just yeah i would have loved i would have loved to be next to you and like you just be like i got some
Alexis: Like I didn't know that that it was in other things.
Brett: Yeah.
Alexis: Like that's the way it came.
Brett: That's so, that is so awesome.
Alexis: or or the flakes. Yeah. Or the like, quote unquote, like little nuggets.
Plant People: I imagine just Alexis pulling imitation crab meat out of her pocket now in the summer, just eating it.
Plant People: I don't know if you would.
Alexis: ah it's It's in, I keep it in the cheese drawer so I can grab everything with one fill swoop.
Plant People: I don't know if you would.
Jessica : yeah makes sense
Brett: wow yeah you ah like to have all your snacks as if they were extruded from some you know i really i i love that so so much yeah
Plant People: No.
Alexis: All right.
Plant People: Yes. Like peanut butter products.
Plant People: Building blocks of health. I like the word extruded there, Brett. Nicely played.
Alexis: Well, ah drop us a comment with your walking snack of choice and or if you've ever just bought a pack of imitation crab to to eat on the go. So, you know, it's ironic that you say extruded in that shape because the my other favorite thing that's my car snack is um at the grocery store, the like cans that pop, you know, easy pop cans of artichoke hearts.
Brett: wow awesome
Plant People: <unk>
Plant People: I'm scared.
Plant People: Like being a sausages. Oh,
Jessica : Oh.
Alexis: eat eat those in the, or not artichoke rice.
Brett: Now, does that go back to childhood or is that a more recent?
Alexis: I'm sorry, heart of palm, heart of palm, specifically heart of palm. They're the long, tall.
Jessica : That is so just different.
Alexis: Yeah. mean My, my mom and I used to do it like, like the, so dad and I would eat Vienna sausages in in the car.
Jessica : Oh.
Alexis: Like we'd get like one and share it in, you know, after we did grocery shopping as a child, just one, we'd just, the rest we'd dump out.
Plant People: Like one Vienna sausage or a can of Vienna sausages?
Brett: One can was good for six trips to the grocery.
Alexis: Yeah.
Plant People: Yes. Yes.
Alexis: And mom and would occasionally share the heart of palm one.
Plant People: Oh, man.
Alexis: So also in that round long shape.
Brett: Oh my goodness. i
Plant People: Alexis is just trying to bring it back to horticulture from Vienna sausages.
Alexis: Come on people.
Brett: i have known Alexis for a long time and this has genuinely shocked me.
Plant People: New info. This is breaking info, people.
Brett: This is awesome.
Plant People: You're hearing this as we're hearing it.
Brett: I love it. I absolutely love it.
Alexis: Jessica's like, this is pretty standard.
Plant People: And the pregnant lady is super impressed. I can tell by the look on your face, Jessica, for those watching.
Jessica : yeah I am am need this and I'm like do I need to eat a Vienna sausage right now oh they would probably love it they would probably love that
Alexis: She's like, do I need to go buy some heart of palm?
Plant People: yeah
Brett: You need...
Alexis: the answer is yes.
Alexis: shit
Plant People: You probably do.
Brett: You the boys started on some imitation crab meat so they can they can help to spread this tradition.
Plant People: It's never about time.
Alexis: It's their version of Vienna sausage. It's...
Brett: Yeah.
Alexis: Well, um what we're here today for...
Brett: I'm so shook I can't even possibly think of a segue right now.
Plant People: No recovery, no recovery.
Jessica : can't even think of like what we're supposed to be talking about
Alexis: We are we're talking about, if you've looked at the show though title of the show, ah we are talking about pruning today because we know it's the time of year where a lot of those questions come up.
Alexis: When do I do something? How do I do it? Why do I even need to bother pruning? Do you even need to ah bother pruning? And all that jazz. And especially after periods of, you know, cold weather, you know, we start and things that start to bud out, we start to see possible damage and other kinds of situations.
Alexis: So we thought pruning would be something valuable for you all.
Jessica : ah Very timely topic, right?
Alexis: Timely
Plant People: Are we, are we still talking, I guess it's semi when this show airs, it'll not exactly dormant pruning here in central Kentucky and Kentucky, depending on which zone you're in, it it still may be dormant pruning.
Alexis: Mm-mm.
Plant People: But for us, I guess things are starting to grow, but it's still not a bad time for a lot of things. Is it to go ahead and prune that?
Jessica : Great.
Plant People: I mean, we're in a sort of a transition stage now.
Alexis: Yeah.
Brett: You're hearing this probably April, mid-April-ish.
Plant People: Yeah. Things are starting to really leaf out.
Alexis: Yeah.
Jessica : Yeah.
Brett: How do you, originally quick, how how would you deform define dormant versus not dormant?
Alexis: Yeah.
Jessica : I have deformed a lot of plants by pruning improperly before.
Brett: How would you deform?
Plant People: Yes. We've been pruning of fruit trees over the years, but when buds aren't broken, yeah.
Brett: foreign them
Alexis: Same.
Brett: I'm still recovering from imitation crab meat and artichoke hearts.
Jessica : From the crab.
Alexis: The deformity.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : yeah
Plant People: it's good it's it's it's ah' It's a hard pull back from that.
Brett: And...
Alexis: Heart of Pom.
Plant People: mean It was the abyss, the edge of the abyss.
Alexis: Heart of Pom.
Brett: to How would you define or or if you if I go out and look at a plant, how do I tell if it's dormant or not?
Plant People: ah But dormant pruning. ah Generally, I mean, ah just from a practical field standpoint is when things haven't leafed out, buds are tight cluster. Now, if you're talking about dormant fruit tree pruning, it's little different because the buds go through all these stages, right? and ah But for the most part, when no leaves and buds are still tight cluster, that to me is dormant pruning.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: And that'll come into play later on in our discussion today when we talk about things like, you know, if we're pruning for pruning for structure versus flowering, it becomes ah a bigger discussion in some cases.
Plant People: So yeah, dormant pruning.
Brett: Yeah. If you're in the, if you're in the kind of general interest in these types of things, there is, I think it's easier to sort of say, just sort of starts leafing out or it's before it leafed out. But in the actual world of managing this stuff, there's all these different stages of where the buds are, even leaf, even leaf buds, you can have a swelling, you can have a slight opening and different stages along that path.
Plant People: Yeah, it's it's gradients. Yeah, leaf buds are the same.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: you know
Plant People: You know, and a lot of times we talk about pruning in, you know, in two different ways.
Brett: And
Plant People: There's lots of ways to talk about pruning depending on the plant. But we talk about, you know, the reasons, first of all, why we're pruning. ah But in the case of trees, I mean, you may talk about structural changes, even though ah they've started to leaf out, you don't have full leaf out and you need to make some structural changes to ah an oak tree that's by your house, for instance.
Plant People: It's still a great time to go ahead and prune like oaks and maples, even though they're starting to leaf out and don't have full leaf load.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Because your biggest concern in that situation would be the weight of the limb and being able to see the structure of the tree. That's why I like to dormant prune. If I have to do any kind of, I try not to prune those things, but if you have to and make pruning cuts, I mean, that's just some reasons why it's still a good time to do that. Even though the leaf out is occurring is you can still see into the structure of the tree. And that's a good thing. It's better when there's no leaves on there.
Plant People: because you can get an overall better sense of the tree and what you need to do. But the weight is still not on the limbs, and that's a very good thing, because when we're talking about bigger plants, that weight becomes a huge issue. So that's considerations when we're thinking about things like trees.
Jessica : I think also just to add to that, it's always it's always a good time to prune.
Plant People: Hmm.
Jessica : like Because we'll talk through and say, like ah we'll share certain plants you know that it is a good time or it's not a good time.
Plant People: Hmm.
Jessica : But we've recently had a lot of storms come through. So it's a good time to prune any time when you have storm damage that has occurred.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Jessica : It's better to take that off and get a good, nice pruning cut on a tree than letting it hang there and potentially...
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : cause more damage or you know tear into that bark uh by leaving it there so that's like my one thing i always tell people like when they asking you know when to prune and it's like well it's not you know they know it's not a good time to prune certain things but if you have any damage or dead wood or something like that that's like the yeah go for it yeah
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: That's the 3Ds, right? Dead, disease, damage. Yeah, those are any time anytime, anytime. That's the 3D rule. I use that over and over again. And that's for shrubs as well as trees.
Plant People: That's a great point, Jessica, is any time of the year for those things. And I also point out as far as any time of the year when you're talking about landscape trees especially, but also for two different things, and that's water sprouts, which are up in the tree, these
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: pencil-like growth that can accumulate if limbs go below a certain angle and you get bunches of those. For water sprouts up in a plant or suckers coming out around the roots, they fall into that category too when I'm talking to folks. So anything dead, disease, or damage, and then water sprouts and suckers, that's sort of at any time of the year that because you're um you're working towards overall plant health with those things.
Plant People: With water sprouts and suckers, they don't add a lot to the plant. In some cases they can detract from ah the plant, but also the dead disease design, dying stuff either poses a ah health hazard to you, not just the plant in the case of dead wood, but also if it's a diseased or you know crossover branches that are creating wounds and stuff, any time of the year.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Jessica : Mm-hmm. huh
Plant People: So that's a great place to start. Because the overall goal, right, is the longevity of the plant the health of the plant. um And so you have to take those things into account in the bigger picture. Those are good to do anytime during the year.
Plant People: um
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: That's a good point, Jessica.
Brett: And I would, I would say too, that the, the optimal window is the optimal window, not because it's the only time of year that you can prune. And if you do it any other time, the thing's going to die.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: It's just because that's the least stressful time to do that to the plant.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: It's the most optimal.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Brett: So imagine me giving you a task after you've worked a full day and then you had to take care of the kids and you did the dishes and you're you're stressed out.
Plant People: Yes.
Brett: you know That's not the optimal time for me to ask you to do something for me. Whereas if I could come in right at the beginning of your day when you're fresh, you know good night's sleep and I ask you to do something, I'm ah i'm likely to have a better result.
Brett: It's the same way if you can prune it just before bud break on a tree.
Plant People: Yeah, dormancy, yeah.
Brett: that What that does is, you know physiologically, as you think about it, just as but before dormancy ends, you're taking and you're removing that thing. And then the whole tree comes back to life, so to speak. you know it It pushes out all its ah its new leaves.
Brett: It doesn't put a lot of new energy into that branch. It puts the energy into the other branches. There's a lot of ah nutrients and water and other things flowing.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Brett: It's able to heal quickly. So that's why, for instance, you wouldn't want to wouldn't want to necessarily prune it right before winter starts, right before it becomes dormant, because now you have this open wound that's just going to sit there through all of winter.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: and
Brett: It's going to get wet. It's going to get you know cold and all these other things. that So that's that's the reasoning. But as rayis Ray and and um and Jessica have said, there it's if you're not going to do a ton of pruning any time of year is kind of OK on something that's pretty ah robust and strong.
Plant People: yeah
Brett: But it's really just about trying to optimize the best time of year to not stress the plant out.
Plant People: Yeah, a lot of that, what you just mentioned, Brett, to me is like sugar content.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: That's a weird angle at coming at that. But when things start to go dormant and the sugar content comes up in the tree, we call that hardening off. And when it has high sugar content, it has greater resistance to freezing.
Plant People: know, it's like plant antifreeze.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: And one of the things you don't want to do after mid to late summer in a lot of plants like boxwoods and maples and things like that, you don't want to do that late season pruning because then you cause a ah reaction in the plant that causes a flush of new growth. And that new growth is not going to harden off before winter.
Plant People: And we see that as the most common scenario. And I'm sure, ah Jessica, you as being in a county office, you get that question all the time. People have pruned their boxwoods and then they get this new growth and they get 16 inches of of, you know, dead area the next spring.
Jessica : Right.
Plant People: You just know what they did. They pruned late summer, got that new growth.
Jessica : right
Plant People: And that's what Brett's talking about is that, um, that that proper time when the plant, you know, ah can heal the quickest or compartmentalize the pruning cut the quickest.
Plant People: there's There's a certain timing factor in there. That's ideal. Now, we we do some things all throughout the year, but ideally, it's during that time that Brett just mentioned for but for a lot of different plants, right?
Plant People: That's a good good rule of thumb. And it all has to do with the plant hardening off, starting that process in mid to late summer, going into winter when it's mostly dormant and very low meristematic conditions.
Jessica : Thank
Plant People: like activity at growing points of the tree. You make the pruning cut, the tree doesn't know the the the difference, and then it calluses or compartmentalizes that injury, ah that pruning cut, ah very well.
Brett: So I'm front-loading my commentary because after this, I have everybody else is going to know way more than me. So, so, i so I think we summarized that for trees, most, most kind of landscape, traditional landscape trees, typically you would want to think about trying, if you can, trying to prune in basically late winter, early spring in Kentucky.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: That's typically in like February and March is when a lot of that dormancy transition starts to happen.
Plant People: Yeah. Yep.
Alexis: do Same with fruit trees too. If you've got a couple fruit trees, um you'll start seeing that happen.
Jessica : Yep.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : Yeah.
Plant People: fruit Fruit trees are, that that's a good example.
Brett: cool
Jessica : ah
Plant People: And and that we could even have a separate show just on pruning of fruit trees.
Jessica : yeah
Plant People: But yeah, like ah that's a good point, Alexis, on the fruit trees. You prune those on the dormant.
Alexis: What about, sorry, this just hit me and probably most of our listeners, this does not apply to, but maybe you're plant nerds and you just like to know things. ah Vineyards, grapes, when are they pruning grapes?
Alexis: I always, dormant period also.
Plant People: A dormant period also for the most part.
Brett: more Similar time.
Jessica : Okay.
Alexis: Okay, I thought so, but then I was like,
Brett: Yeah. February, March.
Plant People: and And grape pruning is really interesting.
Jessica : Do they...
Plant People: We had a discussion yesterday Master Gardeners. If you prune break grapes properly, I mean, they, yes, they look like they have been butchered.
Alexis: they flush like crazy, yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : yeah Like there's not, yeah, there's like nothing left when they prune them, it looks like.
Plant People: But.
Plant People: Well.
Alexis: Yeah.
Plant People: With grapes, it's a little different.
Alexis: Yeah.
Plant People: but Well, it's not ah greatly different um because nothing, no wood that you see in and very early winter is going to bear fruit. It's only on the new flushes, and that's how you manage like things like grapes, which are a little bit specialized, but also super cool the way you manage those.
Alexis: Right.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: Yeah.
Brett: And part of the strategy is you don't want to have too many shoots because you want the grapes that are on the shoots there to get as many nutrients, the right amount of nutrients as possible, but you want enough shoots that you get a good yield.
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah. yeah
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Brett: So there's, um, yeah.
Alexis: quality over quantity kind of issue.
Plant People: In Kentucky, that's that's a huge problem with grapes. Our soils are so good for the most part. They're almost too good as far as the nutrient profile goes. And we have too much leaf cover in some cases, or too much vigor is the right word I'm looking for.
Plant People: And it's really hard to balance that fruit load versus vigor. So yeah, that's a tough one.
Brett: Yeah, good. There's all kinds of strategies with great, with great training and pruning. And we we should definitely try to get, ah get Jeff on here.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah, that that's ah that'd be a great topic.
Brett: Jeff Wheeler, shout out Jeff Wheeler.
Alexis: Adding it.
Brett: ah he works at the, works with UK horticulture, and we get South Farm, big grape nerd, big pruning nerd.
Plant People: Yeah, because because fruit you start to talk about fruit and you get specialized and we will muddy the water quick, but it's also a great topic.
Jessica : can answer all the questions. Yeah.
Alexis: Uh-huh.
Plant People: I don't know why we haven't thought about that before, but that's ah that's ah that's a really good one.
Alexis: Yeah.
Jessica : Yeah.
Alexis: Not to take us off topic. I just, it dawned on me.
Plant People: No.
Jessica : Yeah, no, that's it.
Plant People: Yeah, that's a great question.
Jessica : That's because I was thinking about that, too, is because of when Ray mentioned just about pruning apples, like as you could do, we could do a whole episode on just like fruit pruning because like there's different considerations with like how old your apple tree is, right?
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : Like if you have new little baby apple trees, you're going to wait a little longer to prune those.
Alexis: Jessica.
Jessica : And you were. Yeah, I know. I just I p pray i waited as long as I could ah to prune, you know, versus like older established trees.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : And there's all sorts of things that go into it.
Plant People: Yeah. And fruit trees, we talk about the difference.
Jessica : Fruits a different ballgame. Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah. To do the difference between training, which is the first three years versus pruning, which takes place year four on. So a completely different kind of thing when you're setting things like scaffold limbs, if you're talking about semi dwarf or,
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Now everything's high-density orchards if you're commercial in Kentucky, which is a completely different pruning system.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: But, you know, the basic things that Brett started us off with, as far as timing, that still applies in those situations where you're trying to make pruning cuts, not only when the tree is going to heal the best, but also...
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: um It also involves diseases, doesn't it? Because a lot of if you do late season pruning as a homeowner, especially that may not have cover sprays of fungicides and bactericides, you also increase the risk of diseases if you prune later in the year. That's not to say in some situations we already said, you know, that's fine in some situations where you have damaged wood or whatever.
Plant People: But if you prune during the dormant period, it also decreases the likelihood of spreading diseases. And that that's a big one to do for homeowners.
Brett: Quick PSA, think about ah plan for sanitizing, cleaning and sanitizing your tools between sessions. If you know that a tree has disease, you want to sanitize after you use the tools in that place.
Brett: There's a whole thing of air about not spreading disease.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: So not that we've kind of gone down a more technical, which is fine because we are dorks.
Plant People: I know.
Alexis: Sorry.
Jessica : my
Alexis: Hort culture.
Jessica : Plant nerds.
Brett: Oh, I mean, hort culture. But I think so. One of the things that has happened to me is that ah my wife and gardening partner who was featured on a previous podcast has planted a bunch of perennial flower things And I need to know when to prune those.
Brett: So guide me, please.
Plant People: things that Things that flower and they're perennials, which are woody things.
Alexis: are they herbaceous i guess i should start off with their herbaceous or or woody both maybe we assume both yeah so maybe you start with herbaceous what are your else thoughts on that uh they don't get woody grow so they're perennial they come back every year ah but they're not gonna have like woody stems uh on them yeah um usually yeah yeah
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : Yes. Or Woody's.
Plant People: Yeah. My mind of me over immediately went to tie her brushes.
Brett: Both. All of those.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: Herbaceous meaning. Which one that?
Brett: Like they die all the way back to the ground?
Plant People: and And Brett loaded up by letting us know, I think immediately, didn't you, Brett, that blooms are important in this scenario, right?
Jessica : Yep.
Brett: Usually. Okay.
Jessica : Yep.
Plant People: Ornamental blooms are important.
Brett: Blooms are, blooms are important. Blooms are important.
Plant People: Yeah. Which changes the changes the discussion a little bit. It really does.
Brett: So so you're saying if I prune one way, i won't get flowers and if I prune another way, I will?
Plant People: In a lot of cases. Yes. And I did that to myself last year, but after you guys talk about this, I'll tell you the boneheaded thing I did last year.
Jessica : and and here
Jessica : And your your timing, right, as we've mentioned ah bunch already, timing is a big part of it.
Plant People: Timing based on bloom. And you were talking to us a little bit before the, we got started on the show, Jessica, about that a little bit as far as timing goes, weren't you?
Jessica : Yeah, we were we were kind of talking about the things that help us remember when to prune certain plants because it can get confusing out there. But like, what is it? If they flower before the end of June, when do we prune those?
Jessica : They flower before, prune them right after, right afterwards.
Alexis: Right after, right.
Plant People: Yes.
Jessica : Yeah.
Plant People: The early bloomers.
Alexis: They're all good.
Plant People: In Kentucky, we we call those early bloomers. If it's around June, beginning of June, we and kind of lump those in.
Jessica : Yep.
Plant People: Now, that's not going to be true of other areas of the country, but for Kentucky, our golden rule is the beginning of June. We call those early bloomers. And you said when, Jessica, if they're early bloomers?
Jessica : you You prune them right after you finished you're finished blooming.
Plant People: Yes.
Jessica : Great.
Alexis: And so if you're not in Kentucky or in a similar zone, the type of plant might help you figure out like, okay, when does it bloom for me?
Plant People: Yes.
Jessica : right
Alexis: And so you're thinking like lilacs, forsythia, smokebush, all those things that are, you know, flower earlier in the season, um though you're going to, you're going to prune them right after bloom.
Plant People: Yeah. who
Alexis: So, you know, whether that's June or if you're in the mountains of Colorado, that could be July, it's
Brett: Which one is Weigula?
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : Right.
Brett: Was that how you say it?
Alexis: Vigelia?
Plant People: Would you?
Brett: Yeah, that one.
Plant People: You
Alexis: Yeah, that's how I say it.
Brett: I don't speak French.
Alexis: Is that how? and This is Latin.
Plant People: don't...
Brett: I'm just teasing.
Plant People: you know
Alexis: Thank you very much.
Brett: I'm just teasing.
Alexis: I say Vigelia.
Brett: Okay.
Alexis: What do you guys say?
Plant People: That's a Wojellia, yeah. yeah
Alexis: Okay, because Latin is a dead language, so...
Jessica : I do not say that and I'm not going to even attempt to say my version.
Plant People: I've heard it both ways, Waglia and Wojellia.
Brett: ah did does did latin Does Latin have a G like a just sound in it? You know who studied Latin? Emily Spencer, former but podcast guest.
Alexis: Who? Hmm...
Brett: She also said that she laughed at my corgito ergo S joke. ah she's She's in the 1%. So she'll she'll have to let us know.
Plant People: She got it.
Brett: But is that in the the Blooms Before June category?
Plant People: I forget with that one.
Alexis: Uh, yes.
Plant People: It's in there, and I looked that one up.
Jessica : do yeah yeah
Alexis: Yeah, yeah. It blooms like, yeah, it's right on the fringe.
Plant People: It's an early bloomer.
Brett: Okay. Okay.
Plant People: It's right on the fringe of early bloomers.
Brett: So you're saying, you're saying
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : like snowball bush right is that one hardy yeah
Alexis: Viburnum, yeah.
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah, we talked about that.
Brett: if I got that thing and I want it, i don't know why i said it like that.
Jessica : but
Brett: If I got that thing, that kind of just came out.
Alexis: That thing thing.
Brett: I got that thing. ah if i'm If I'm out walking around my garden with a handful of imitation crab meat and I'm looking at my, i why what is it?
Plant People: Yes.
Brett: Wigelia?
Alexis: Wajalia? Wajalia?
Plant People: What'd you tell you?
Brett: Wigelia.
Jessica : I jelly it.
Brett: um
Jessica : Yeah.
Brett: And it's a little overgrown from where I would prefer it to be, but I would like to have flowers this year. I should wait until it blooms, drops the flowers, and then prune.
Brett: Is that correct?
Plant People: Which kind of kind of makes sense.
Jessica : Yeah.
Alexis: Correct.
Plant People: I mean, it's the answer is sort of in the timing because the early bloomers said the the buds are there when? Well, they're there early in the year. And if you prune them dormant, you're pruning what? You're pruning the flower buds.
Jessica : Right.
Alexis: So, yeah.
Plant People: So that's why that rule works so well is you have to wait until after because if you prune before, like I did last year on my angel wing lilacs, I wasn't thinking. And my wife got very upset that they didn't bloom, but I did not tell her that pruned.
Plant People: pruned all the blooms off, not thinking I've got French lilacs and then, you know, the white lilacs.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Brett: but so you're So you're telling me you you pruned a lilac, one of these early, early flowering things, and it did not die.
Plant People: And that was my fault.
Plant People: I pruned it. Yes. No, it didn't. But see, that was my point. It was overgrown. My objectives were not the flowers. That's my wife's primary directive, you know, not to quote some Star Trek.
Plant People: That's her prime directive is flowering my, yes, indeed, Brett. um But my, ah my reasoning for pruning that dormant was I was more concerned about the overgrown nature of that. i hadn't pruned it in a while.
Plant People: ah So that's why I went ahead and did it knowing that for the overall health of the plant, it was not going to impact that. And it was better done during dormant stage, but I was not going to get blooms that year.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: But did I fess up to that? That I, it was me. No, I did not fess up to that. And Jennifer hopefully will never listen to this episode.
Brett: this This is making stuff make sense because I hear i I've watched videos and stuff and this is on. Yeah, I'm i'm learning along with our listeners here, but but hearing hearing people say
Jessica : Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brett: this stuff is really kind of out of hand or overgrown. We need to cut it back. And yes, we're going to sacrifice some blooms this year for the sake of the overall structure of the plant in future years.
Jessica : huh
Brett: And that's, so is that an example I've heard of like the idea of, of blooming on or flowering on old wood versus new wood?
Alexis: and
Brett: Is that what we're talking about here?
Alexis: yeah Yeah, so so old wood yeah it means like
Plant People: Yeah, a little bit.
Alexis: pretty literally like it's, ah it's flowering on the last year's wood.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Alexis: And the new wood is going to be on the new growth. And so it took me like, ah i don't know, it doesn't seem right that it took me a while to like to really figure this out.
Alexis: When you think about like the life cycle of plants, right? But um I like to put things in an actual calendar when my brain thinks about it. And so, so if you take a lilac as an example, lilacs are, you know, historically a spring bloomer.
Alexis: And so you, if that So the the blooms that it's going to make in spring of 2025, the buds were created in summer and fall of 2024.
Alexis: And so I'm going to prune it in you know early summer, late spring, early summer 2024.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Alexis: then it gives it and then it gives it all summer and fall and winter to create this bud stage and then it's going to bloom again and then I'm going prune it and then it starts over versus new wood you are going to prune it in the you know quote unquote like you know dormant stage because you want a flush of new growth because that's where the buds form so the more new growth you have assuming that the plant is healthy has good roots gets the water but but blah blah blah in a perfect situation the more new growth you have the more flowers you have
Jessica : ah
Alexis: And so then you prune off all that old dead stuff.
Jessica : Right.
Alexis: And like hydrangeas are like historically the hardest thing.
Jessica : Yes.
Alexis: and We all, I and Jessica both always have to look up which one is which.
Plant People: The macrophilias, yeah, the old fashioned ones, yeah.
Alexis: Like, like Yeah, people will send us pictures and they'll be like, hey, ah when do I prune this hydrangea? Number one, they only send you a picture when it's completely like you know dormant and all you see are like the hanging flowers that are brown.
Jessica : So yeah, you can't, you're like, ah how do I identify this?
Alexis: And you're like, ah think that's a macrophylla or maybe it's an arborescence um a genus.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: and But The reason why it matters so much versus a lilac for the most part, a lilac is a lilac is a lilac is because hydrangeas, there are new wood bloomers, there are old wood bloomers, and then there's new newer varieties that will do both.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : huh
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: yeah
Jessica : Like, you yeah so you could chop them up and you're still going to get stuff from them.
Alexis: And so you might get multiple blooms.
Alexis: Right. Or you could not chop them up one year if you have the space for it and you get two cycles of blooms.
Plant People: The fact that through breeding, um they i mean it's a it's a plant that I would not have considered personally for myself, not the old-fashioned type hydrangeas.
Jessica : Right.
Plant People: Because there was so much winter kill, you didn't get a consistent bloom every year.
Alexis: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Plant People: But that was an industry that completely changed through breeding when... They patented all of these cultivars and varieties ah that were so-called ever-blooming. They bloom on new wood.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: I mean, when our when our PG hydrangeas at the office, they get to be about six foot tall. They get a little overgrown. What do I do? They're a healthy plant. I'll take them down to 18 inches in the winter, and then everybody kind of freaks out as they drive by, and they come in, they're like, what did you do with your hydrangeas? They're beautiful. I'm like, about every three or four years, I cut those down to 18 to 20 inches, and then they flush back, and because they're ever-blooming.
Plant People: And there's so much easier to take care of. But the fact that that that that plant, ever-blooming hydrangeas, completely changed that industry and brought back
Jessica : and Yeah. And it's hard for people who like maybe move to a new house and there's already established hydrangeas there.
Alexis: Yeah.
Jessica : And then they purchase these new ever blooming ones. Right. So they're going to like try to prune everything the same. And then they're suddenly like, Hey, when we moved here, these bloomed great.
Jessica : And now they're not blooming.
Alexis: then
Jessica : is it, do I need to fertilize them? Do I need this?
Alexis: Right.
Jessica : I need that. And then you have to try to find out like, okay, what exactly, what type of hydrangea do you want? you know, was already there.
Alexis: the
Jessica : And it could be just as something as simple as, you know, you're you might be accidentally pruning off all your buds.
Plant People: Yeah, yeah.
Alexis: Yeah. Yeah.
Jessica : So yeah.
Plant People: And it is confusing, yeah.
Alexis: And I always have to like revisit this every year because as someone who grows flowers for cuts, right? Like you're cutting off the bloom. So it's like, does that matter? And so like for lilacs, as an example, right, you you are already going to prune them after they bloom. So I go ahead and do my pruning as part of that cutting process.
Alexis: And that's kind of how I cut. So I might leave some blooms um just because that's for the overall health of the plant. Right. So that's part of that kind of thought process of Oh, yeah.
Plant People: Yeah. And here we're, as we're talking about lilacs, maybe in a good spot to, to talk about multi-stemmed shrubs and lilac is a great example, a pruning strategy that has worked so well for me over the years.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Alexis: Yeah.
Plant People: And you'll see this documented in a lot of information at the university of Kentucky. But when you have shrubs like Rose of Sharon or lilac, any of those, um, talking about general plant health, um,
Plant People: people We get a lot of questions how to prune those because so many times I go out on a site visit and I see that people are ah heading those back. They're just making top cuts to bring the overall size down.
Plant People: When on multi-liter shrubs like that, it's so much better to do a thinning cut because an important concept in pruning, very important concept is heading back and thinning. Heading back is when you shorten a branch.
Plant People: uh, partially thinning is when you take a branch all the way down to the ground in this case of lilacs or back to a trunk. Now, when you're, we're talking about lilacs about every three years, I have a brand new plant, actually four years, meaning that any wood that's older than three years old, going into four years, I go in at the top of the ground and I cut that out because it becomes unthrifty.
Plant People: Um, And that is a very important concept in in pruning.
Brett: Thank you.
Plant People: And it's important in, ah especially these multi-leadered shrubs that we're talking about, not talking about blooms, no offense, Annie, Brett's wife. ah
Alexis: Thank you.
Plant People: But there you're just taking the tips off. And that's not really getting to the heart of the matter on these multi-leadered shrubs. You're actually going and you're thinning those down, taking off old wood to the ground.
Plant People: And that's how you can maintain these like gorgeous bloom loads. So ah just kind keep that in mind.
Brett: to To be fair, I also also enjoy flowers ah too.
Plant People: To be fair, you do. Okay.
Brett: Yeah, I just had to sort of set it up as a little bit of a scenario, little bit of a bit.
Jessica : good
Plant People: Yeah, you had to throw that out there.
Brett: um Yeah, I think i think if i had a it one extremely petty thing that I could like implement, it would be that you have to get a you have to get trained and get a license in order to buy a hedge trimmer.
Jessica : yeah
Brett: Because the number of people who use a hedge trimmer to prune things that do not, that is not appropriate for, I mean, and and I would almost go to the point of like, I understand if you're a professional and you got to move on and and you're trimming certain things.
Alexis: Yes.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : Yeah. Right.
Jessica : right
Brett: I would never use a hedge trimmer to trim anything. I would go and trim, snip every little thing myself and and it that gives me a little more control. i also enjoy the process, but that that's, yeah, that's,
Alexis: Obviously.
Plant People: Brett, Alexis, you guys that are on campus, do you, and I always ask people this, like, and I pick on taxes because when you shear taxes, yeah, you can keep it nice and uniform, but that's a kind of a heading back cut and it makes everything real thick and bushy and sunlight can't get in.
Alexis: Bonsai guy.
Plant People: But is there any good examples of like a taxes that is pruned the way you're talking about, Brett, where you're actually maintaining more of a natural growth habit of that? I'm always looking for good examples of those because it's amazing how different a plant that is pruned to different ways look.
Alexis: Yeah.
Jessica : ah I want to do that. I have two giant ones at my house that are like overgrown and I really want to prune them.
Plant People: I would love to do that. Yeah.
Alexis: yeah
Plant People: It takes a long time.
Jessica : Yeah.
Alexis: I've seen two sets of really beautiful ones that are incredibly old and someone went in and hacked them up appropriately ah in where they're almost like, almost like tree trees.
Alexis: I don't know.
Jessica : Yes.
Alexis: They're very artistic. And Jessica's been, and I have like Ood and Odd over one set together and they're at Udell Botanical Garden.
Plant People: Oh, I need to go there then.
Jessica : Mm hmm.
Alexis: And then that's Y E W Dell. dell because they're known for their use, ah their taxes.
Plant People: Nice.
Jessica : Get it? Taxes.
Brett: You taxed the common name of Texas.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: And then the other one is at, ah oh, I just blanked on the name. It's a venue, but it's also a distillery and they do rum?
Alexis: No, they do gin. What's that place called?
Plant People: Hmm.
Alexis: um
Brett: What city is it in?
Alexis: The distillery that does gin here in Kentucky, I guess it's kind of Frankfurt, but I think it's technically not Frankfurt. Yeah.
Plant People: Like a, I forget this.
Alexis: Oh, you guys are gonna be mad when you realize.
Brett: know.
Jessica : Not Castle and Key.
Brett: Well,
Alexis: Castle and Key, Castle and Key.
Jessica : Is it Castle and Key?
Brett: okay
Jessica : Yeah.
Alexis: Castle and Key has a has a sunken garden that ah has some really beautiful old ewes that John Karloft has pruned up.
Plant People: have a good example of that
Plant People: that. I see yews that are pruned like that. Sometimes I even, ah I've heard people refer to that as cloud pruning or natural pruning, but yews look really different when you prune them naturally.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Brett: Okay.
Plant People: um
Brett: Juniper's.
Plant People: And yeah, junipers really do.
Alexis: Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah. Which we haven't even talked about evergreens yet.
Brett: Yeah. So, and, Just in case anyone out there is like, what the heck you said, heading back, you said thinning, you said Brett is trying to ban, Brett's trying to ban some hedge trimmers.
Plant People: Yeah. Break it down for us, Brett. That's an important one. Yeah.
Brett: So like, imagine you walk up to this plant that's very, very thick and you want to compact it.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: so
Brett: You want to remove some of the foliage. You want to in some way, you know, affect it. a heading back. So Alexis sent um sent us a message in our little chat here to say that heading back is cutting just the tip.
Brett: So it's just removing the tip. And what that's going to do is it's going to and it's going to make that plant likely produce buds at that cut site and in some cases further back.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: And so it's going to increase the density of the foliage of that in particular thing.
Plant People: Yes. it And sometimes that's desired and sometimes, you know, people don't think about that's what's going to happen.
Brett: If the thing is crazy overgrown and you, and you want, but you want to create some space in it.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Brett: And Ray talked about cloud pruning this idea where you're creating these little, these little puffs, these little clouds of foliage across the plant, but you can see the structure, you can see the branches, you know, that, that might look like physically reaching in with a pruner back to a branch further in and cutting off an entire branch and removing that
Alexis: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brett: it might be ah taking and cutting that branch all the way back to the, ah to the trunk itself.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: I mean, as we start to move into some of the bonsai techniques and the topiary techniques that people you'll see that people use to make these crazy English garden, topiary gardens and other things like.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Alexis: Or like um like a red twig dogwood is another good example.
Brett: Hmm.
Alexis: So you've got lots and lots of stems coming out of the ground or a crepe myrtle often are like this because they can die back to the ground.
Plant People: Yeah, it is.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: Hmm.
Alexis: So you've got lots and lots of shoots coming out and there's too there's just too many. It's either too big, it's filling the space, it's too round,
Plant People: It will overwhelm you if you don't address it.
Alexis: Right. Or it's not getting enough light in and you can be having an end airflow.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: And so especially with like dogwoods, I get a lot of cankers on them.
Plant People: Powdering. Yeah. Powdering mildews and things.
Alexis: They need more airflow. So you will go in and cut off those you know branches all the way to the ground.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Alexis: So you go from having 10 shoots coming out of the ground to seven shoots coming out of the ground.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: So that's that thinning process.
Plant People: And the old ones, the the bark, if you look at like dogwoods are a great example and lilacs, whatever, you can look at the bark and almost and tell the old wood because it it's just starts to not look, it starts to look rough.
Plant People: It's cracked.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: It's just not meant to be there forever. And I've had, you know, big stands of lilacs that I'll go up to and they've not been pruned in years. And and literally all the center is dead. And they're wondering why it's not blooming.
Alexis: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Plant People: But, you know, then we have the discussion you just mentioned, Alexis, for all those things. And if you can get those kind of two golden rules down, number one is, you know, when you're pruning, always prune to a living point, which means you're pruning to ah a growing area, which is a bud or a trunk with a proper cut.
Plant People: And number, you know, two is just the way that you prune. And that's the thinning and heading back. If you know those two principles, prune to a growing cut or a living point, I'm sorry.
Plant People: And then those two cuts we just mentioned that Brett kind of clarified.
Alexis: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Plant People: If you know those two things, you know 80% of pruning.
Alexis: ah
Plant People: And you use those principles over and over and over again. um Those two things and pruning is is more than half the battle.
Brett: Yeah.
Alexis: and ah And if you don't know how much to cut back, the good rule of thumb is no more than one-fourth. Now, if it's like something really crazy, really overgrown, really lush, um you might be able to get away with like a third.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: You can cut back to a third.
Brett: yeah
Alexis: That's like ah considered a much harder prune.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: But if you are cautious and maybe new to this, go with a quarter. Overall plant size, take it down by 25%.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: 30% going to be... um or 35%, whatever, 33% is going to be ah more what people who have experience doing know a lot more about the plant.
Plant People: yeah
Brett: yeah
Alexis: um We don't even want to talk to Brett on the way he prunes bonsais because it's a totally different, that's ah that's an episode by itself ah because those pruning techniques are not the same.
Jessica : Yes, different ball game with that.
Plant People: A good one.
Alexis: Although the understanding of the way plants work, I would venture to say is going to be the same. So it's just taking those principles in a different way.
Plant People: I mean, I mean.
Brett: the or The more established it is, the longer it's gone since a heavy prune.
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: yeah
Brett: Means that like it's a little more resilient and robust. I'm talking about regular trees, not bonsai trees.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Brett: It's true for this to them too. but um But like in the case of, I think of the pruning journey as something you're not going to accomplish in one year.
Brett: So while you would love to have a plant that was more compact or that was, you know, back this way, do not sacrifice the plant's health just to achieve your aesthetic goals for it.
Alexis: Boom, nailed it.
Jessica : Right.
Jessica : right
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Brett: And so like, for instance, when I'm, when we moved in, we had two dogwoods that were cared for really beautifully for like 50 years. And then in the last 10 years, the person who lived there didn't do anything. And so beautiful trunk lines, like really well sculpted, but the top was horrendous, needed tremendous thinning, all kinds of water shoots and everything else that had caused problems.
Brett: But i I pushed them to ah about that tipping point between a fourth and a third.
Alexis: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brett: And I said, okay, that's it.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Brett: and And I worked on it over the next 10 years almost. And each year I take off a little bit less. But that first year that I took off that third, I let it i didn't touch it again for like two years. I let it fully you know grow back. i let it and it And it did. And they were established. But I definitely agree with that of
Plant People: Multiple year process.
Brett: Don't push it too far and too fast.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: And you also get to learn how the tree works. You get to kind of assess its health.
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah.
Brett: And and that's a cool thing too.
Plant People: If you prune it too hard and fast, you get a lot of secondary issues, not only disease possible diseases, slow callusing and healing, but you get a lot of sun scald, especially in like those dogwoods, a lot of sun scald.
Alexis: Yeah.
Jessica : Right. Right.
Plant People: And you will get the plant, ah I guess a good way to say it is the plant kind of freaks out and sends signals that, hey, I'm dying.
Alexis: yeah
Plant People: And what does a plant that says, hey, I'm dying do?
Jessica : right
Alexis: Water sprouts.
Plant People: It produces lots more growth. So you compound the issue, like Brett said, if you go too far, you will know because the plant will produce a lot of soft, succulent growth, and it actually makes sure few your few future pruning processes way harder.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Alexis: like Yeah.
Brett: Okay, so i'm looking at in looking at how much time weve we have that we've already covered some ground here.
Alexis: It goes, ah.
Brett: um I want to briefly mention as far as tools that you might think about.
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah, good, good.
Brett: um For me, I can accomplish just about everything that I want to do with this type of pruning with a set of hand pruners for slightly bigger branches, a set of what's called loppers, which are really just hand pruners with really long handles and beefier blades.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Brett: And then I also have a pruning saw for even bigger branches than that.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: But if you're pruning small stuff, I mean, hand pruners are the thing.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Pruning saw is really important.
Jessica : I love pruning saw.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Two types of hand pruners, bypass, which is for what, Brett? That's for the living wood. When you have the, like the curved blade that bypasses the anvil section, it's actually bypasses that. um So the bypass is good for living wood.
Brett: yeah the So the bypass is kind of more like a scissors where they they but they pass by each other as they cut.
Plant People: Yes. They literally bypass them.
Brett: And then the anvil is more like ah it's like a cutting a knife on a cutting board where it chops into the flat surface.
Plant People: Yeah. And better for like really tough, more dead wood. I don't use anvil pruners very often.
Alexis: No, ah but I like honestly didn't even know the difference until you just told me And then I was like, oh yeah, I've seen those.
Brett: Yeah, I don't even know.
Plant People: ah really don't.
Brett: I don't even know that out there.
Jessica : right
Alexis: Like I've, I only ever use the bypass.
Jessica : yeah I was thinking the same thing yeah
Plant People: And you mentioned loppers, Brett, just a tip.
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: um I love the new loppers that when you are reading the the packaging, they'll they have short handles. You're like, oh, those are like mini loppers.
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: But then you realize they have a three by force magnifier. They have a gear in there.
Brett: It's so awesome.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: And those are amazing. If you see those, buy them because they have literally the equivalent force of a lopper three times their size.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: But they're compact. They're easy to get in and prune things like lilacs where it's kind of confined.
Alexis: or the rat if ratcheting hand pruners uh are really great so like i i use snips most for most of my stuff because i'm you know printing smaller things but my uh the pruners that i want that i'm gonna ask for for christmas uh the that are larger from our woody stuff is gonna are ratcheting just to kind of save your hands um
Brett: I own a pair of those.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Yeah, those are really nice.
Brett: Oh yeah.
Brett: Oh, wow. That's awesome.
Plant People: Yeah, those are really cool.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Alexis: So that would be good.
Jessica : And you...
Alexis: And then, yeah, the three-point saw is the, you know, like the arborist saw, the hand saw.
Jessica : Yeah. Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: They're really inexpensive, but they're specifically the three-point because they cut on the push in the pool and your life will be so much better.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: So if you get, yeah, yeah.
Jessica : And they make them in like miniaturized versions that you can like just hook on your, yeah.
Alexis: Folding ones.
Jessica : Love those.
Alexis: Yep.
Jessica : That's probably like one of my favorite pruning tools.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: We used to talk about bow saws in pruning, but but you can't use a bow saw in a Rose of Sharon or a lilac or something like that.
Alexis: No.
Plant People: So what you have is that little folding. That's my favorite thing in my garage is a folding saw.
Jessica : Yep.
Alexis: The folding three-point, yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : That's mine too.
Alexis: Love that saw.
Plant People: Double cut folder.
Jessica : Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: The one I have is not there not folding.
Alexis: It's...
Brett: It has like a sheath.
Alexis: Oh, yeah, well.
Brett: It's like a Velco sheathed one.
Jessica : yeah
Plant People: yeah.
Alexis: you You whip it around like a sword. Mine's more like a switchblade. Mm-hmm.
Brett: Exactly.
Jessica : Yeah.
Brett: Exactly. if you strap it You can strap it to your leg, which I never do because I'm not like i but I kind of want to because it makes you look cool, you know?
Plant People: Nice.
Alexis: ah
Plant People: Two different street fights. Yeah.
Plant People: Samurai versus street punk. I love it. There's a showdown coming.
Brett: The other thing I briefly wanted to ask about was, so we talked about early blooming stuff.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: As far as the late blooming stuff, what's a couple of examples of what those are and just to make sure I'm understanding when is it that we could or should prune those.
Plant People: The late blooming stuff, as far as pruning, you could that's more of dormant pruning. So it's ah safe to do but because it forms those flower buds that are desirable later in the year.
Jessica : Yeah.
Jessica : like I'm like yeah um looking out my office window right now and there's a giant butterfly bush and butterfly bushes are very forgiving if you're going to her prune one of those.
Brett: So when I'm bringing my other trees and stuff.
Plant People: Yeah, yeah. When you're pruning all your other stuff.
Jessica : But like, you know, that's a good example of a dormant worm.
Alexis: or your um your native hydrangeas, your...
Jessica : Yep.
Plant People: The bellias and all of, yeah.
Jessica : yep
Plant People: Rose of Sharon. We we mentioned that one. It's a late bloomer. Yeah.
Alexis: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Plant People: All of those.
Alexis: ye
Brett: What about ah what about Wisteria?
Plant People: Crape myrtles.
Brett: Where does that fit?
Plant People: Wisteria is more of a vining.
Alexis: so Yeah, it's a vine.
Jessica : um
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: um Well, ah if it's the Asian wisteria, which is the most pretty one, you should chop it any and every time because it is so aggressive.
Plant People: I have to look up. Yeah.
Alexis: It's actually, and yeah it'll take care of everything.
Jessica : It will take over, yeah.
Alexis: So it's just kind of like prune it always. If it's the American native one, i think you would prune that after bloom.
Jessica : I would think so.
Alexis: But I'd have to look that up because it's an early bloomer.
Jessica : It prunes early enough.
Alexis: Yeah.
Jessica : Yeah.
Brett: Yeah, it's like a I think of it as June.
Alexis: yeah
Plant People: You know, we've had this conversation today and Brett's kind of wrapping us up here, but we've not mentioned the number one rule and number one pet peeve of pruning.
Alexis: Yeah.
Plant People: Nobody's mentioned that today. I'm shocked.
Alexis: Oh, what? Topping?
Plant People: Yes.
Jessica : oh yeah.
Plant People: Thank you.
Jessica : Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: Well, we kind of hit it with we kind of hit it with the head trimmers, but yeah.
Plant People: We have not even gotten um
Brett: I think of that as more of like ah like a war crime than ah
Plant People: it. True, Brad. That's fair.
Jessica : Yeah, I do.
Plant People: That's fair.
Alexis: Yeah. Yeah.
Jessica : it It makes me like I can't stand it. I can't stand when like my neighbors or other people top their trees and then they look terrible.
Plant People: And that's just the indiscriminately sharing.
Alexis: Ugh.
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah.
Alexis: They're just like little club trees with like little sprouts coming out the top.
Jessica : I'm just like, oh.
Alexis: When you see a poor red bud that's been, oh my gosh, it's so painful.
Jessica : and I just like don't like we preach it and preach it and preach it, but then there's still.
Alexis: Well, the a lot of the utility companies still do it too.
Jessica : companies still companies that still do it as part of their general practice like gigantic maple trees that are just having itty bitty sticks for their
Alexis: Yeah. So bad. Yeah.
Plant People: and yeah
Brett: Oh,
Alexis: Yeah.
Brett: ah
Alexis: Ugh.
Plant People: So a couple of, yeah, a couple of things are happening in there. Yeah. Maples are going to send out new growth because they've sent, remember they sent that signal that something terrible is happening to me.
Jessica : they're they're dying
Plant People: So they send out a lot of soft, rapid growth. That's going to get a lot of wind damage, a lot of sun scald. And you're ignoring that rule we talked about earlier, which is always pruned to a living point, which is a bud or back to a bigger trunk.
Alexis: Yeah. You're basically using a giant hedge trimmer when you top things like.
Jessica : Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Yeah, it's indiscriminate.
Brett: Yet again, yet again, you need to have a license in order to even have those.
Plant People: Thank you, Brett.
Alexis: These people have license.
Plant People: Thank you.
Alexis: Well, and they don't arborist license usually.
Plant People: Thank you.
Brett: Yeah. Some of them do.
Jessica : um yeah
Plant People: So I like the pruning discussion.
Brett: Some of them just have a chainsaw.
Alexis: um
Plant People: like pruning discussion.
Alexis: Ray, can you ah put a link? We have a great pub on like why not to and how to get a not top your trees. If you'll put a link to that in the show notes and then.
Plant People: Sure.
Brett: And so so topping your trees in case anyone doesn't exactly like Alexis said, it's like coming and just cutting the top, like taking a spot on the tree and just cutting everything above that spot on all the branches off.
Alexis: Yes. Sorry. I cut him off.
Plant People: Indiscriminate.
Alexis: Yeah.
Jessica : And.
Alexis: Right.
Plant People: And you have a tremendous amount of dead snags because since you're not pruning to living points intentionally, it's going to die back to a living point.
Alexis: Nope.
Plant People: I mean, or worse.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Brett: Yeah.
Jessica : and
Plant People: So lots of dead.
Brett: And there are things you can, if you're, if it's too tall or it's too big, you can actually like, you can thin the leaders.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: You can do these other things that are much more.
Plant People: Heading back and thinning cuts.
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : Unfortunately, in my experience, that a lot of people are get worried about trees being, like you said, too big and scared.
Brett: Yeah.
Jessica : then And that's a better price when they hire certain companies to get them topped.
Brett: Totally.
Alexis: the
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : But in the long run, that tree is probably going to become it's going to be more dangerous than it was.
Alexis: Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: Yeah. It's going to be ugly or it's going to die and you're not going to want it anymore.
Brett: Totally.
Jessica : it it's go to You're going to have ah more issues with that tree.
Brett: Probably both.
Alexis: Probably both.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : By thinking that you're doing something good and making it safer when you're actually doing adverse.
Alexis: Yeah.
Plant People: And you've, yeah.
Alexis: So really you're going to pay for them to come out twice within probably a 10 year period.
Jessica : Yep. Yep.
Brett: And maybe once to pull it off your house.
Plant People: And that's a tough that's a tough discussion.
Alexis: And yeah.
Jessica : Yep.
Plant People: i know, you know, it it bothers all of us plant nerds, but that's a tough tough discussion when you're working with a homeowner and they love a tree, but it was the wrong tree for the wrong it was the ah tree for the wrong location.
Jessica : Right.
Plant People: And they're trying to make the best of a bad situation. But I feel like they're always just kicking the can down the road. They're deferring the problems. Another year when really once you top a tree, you have in every situation, you know, limited the useful life of that plant.
Plant People: You have reduced the life of that plant. You're just deferring the problems.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Brett: Yeah, as it's insane as it is, ah would rather you cut the tree down than do that to it if it's not in the right spot.
Alexis: Right.
Alexis: Yes. It's going to be cheaper.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: And probably safer because as you guys mentioned, it it structurally is not good.
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: So there's a lot of reasons not to do that. But I was impressed with us today. We waited the whole episode and did not get on this tangent. So good on us.
Alexis: We just assume everybody listening to this knows how bad topping is. And we were like, we don't even need to say it.
Plant People: Yeah.
Alexis: um All right. Well, we have been in your ears long enough today. So we will ah get out of here. But we will put ah some links in the show notes that maybe will be helpful for you.
Alexis: Of course, drop us a line via email. Also in the show notes, you can follow us on Instagram at Hort Culture Podcasts. ah also in the show notes. ah And, you know, if you've got questions, if you want to tell us about your favorite snack, maybe we should do something on our Instagram story about, you know, what is your favorite walking snack and have you tried artificial crab meat as a walking snack?
Jessica : What's the process?
Plant People: As a portable snack.
Alexis: Because...
Jessica : Like, is there a video of how they create that crap me
Plant People: There probably is.
Alexis: I...
Plant People: And you probably don't want to know.
Alexis: and Do you want to watch the video how they make chicken nuggets? No. So I don't want to watch the video
Jessica : Well, sure.
Plant People: Or Vienna sausages. I mean, I'm just saying.
Alexis: invitation card, right? Or the sausages. Yeah, exactly.
Plant People: No. No.
Alexis: All right. Well, I appreciate you guys. We appreciate you guys being here and not just me. And we hope that you will join us next time. Have a great one.
