Ep 198. Pruning Lavender and Rejuvenating Shrubs

Mary Stone discusses early spring garden tasks, such as rejuvenating shrubs and removing dead wood. She describes the process of rejuvenating shrubs and the protocols for pruning lavender and concludes with wisdom gained from the rhythms of nature.

Spring is a perfect time to clean our homes, gardens, and gardens of life, including improving our collective outlook, as reflected in Langston Hughes's poem, The Dream Keeper. Thanks for tuning in!

Related Podcasts you'll enjoy:

Companion Blog Posts:

 Rejuvenating Shrubs & Garden of Life and Pruning Lavender & Woody Perennials

Ep 26. Folklore of Hope - Planting Following Nature

Ep 173. Oakleaf Hydrangea for All Seasons

Ep 196. Encouraging Indoor Spring Blooms of Hope

8888

I'd love to hear your garden and nature stories and your thoughts about topics for future podcast episodes. You can email me at AskMaryStone@gmail.com.

You can Follow Garden Dilemmas on Facebook and Instagram #MaryElaineStone.
Episode web page —Garden Dilemmas Podcast Page

Thank you for sharing the Garden of Life,
Mary Stone, Columnist & Garden Designer
                                        AskMaryStone.com

More about the Podcast and Column:

Welcome to Garden Dilemmas, Delights, and Discoveries.

It's not only about gardens; it's about nature's inspirations, about grasping the glories of the world around us, gathering what we learned from mother nature, and carrying these lessons into our garden of life. So, let's jump in in the spirit of learning from each other. We have lots to talk about.

Thanks for tuning in, Mary Stone
Garden Dilemmas? AskMaryStone.com
Direct Link to Podcast Page

Transcript

Ep 198. Pruning Lavender and Rejuvenating Shrubs

Sat, Mar 15, 2025 10:20PM • 11:18
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Gardening tips, rejuvenating pruning, ornamental grass, beneficial insects, monarch garden, burning bush, oak leaf hydrangea, boxwood pruning, lavender pruning, garden design, spring tasks, nature inspiration, community support, garden dilemmas, garden delights.
SPEAKERS
Mary Stone

Mary Stone  00:00
Mary, Hello, fellow lovers of all things green. I'm Mary Stone, and welcome to garden dilemmas, delights, and discoveries. It's not only about gardens. It's about nature's inspirations, about grasping the glories of the world around us, gathering what we learn from Mother Nature, and carrying these lessons into our garden of life. So let's jump in, the spirit of learning from each other; we have lots to talk about. 

Mary Stone  00:25
Hello there. It's Mary Stone on the screen porch, and it's a mild March day, so much so that I'm only wearing a sweatshirt, which seems kind of remarkable because just a few weeks ago, we were in the teens. So that's what March does. It comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Is that what they say? Actually, that is what they say. We talked about in episode 26 Folklore of Hope, Planting Following Nature. I adore that episode, and I'll put a link in the show notes. 

Mary Stone  00:54
It's the time of year we start thinking about our gardens and addressing early tasks, such as cutting back ornamental grass left standing for winter interest and dry perennials to offer habitat for beneficial insects, we leave standing. But before you cut them back, can you wait a bit, please, because the critters are still nesting, and they need a chance to emerge, which typically happens after we have daytime temperatures that rise above 50 degrees for about a week or 10 days. So hold off on that urge. I know it's tempting. 

Mary Stone  01:25
Another task of late winter or early spring is rejuvenating pruning on many of the plants that need a fresh start. In fact, I'm heading out this morning to tend to a garden with overgrown shrubs that I look forward to sharing bits about. But before that, I want to thank those who reached back after our last chat about spring-planted bulbs for summer blooming and Koleen's hilarious squirrel dilemma, her corn cob robber. I so appreciate your kind wishes about my friend Marty, who's home now her recovery journey is underway, and she's itching to get back into her garden and play a game of tennis. So, I hope things go smoothly for her. I mentioned that we design together, and we have clients from long ago that often reappear, and so that's the theme of this week's story that starts like this. 

Mary Stone  02:14
Hello, fellow lovers of all things green; clients from long ago occasionally reappear asking for guidance in rejuvenating their gardens. One of them, Bonnie from Stillwater, New Jersey, is planning a monarch garden, which I helped her with, which led to refurbishing some of her existing shrubs that Marty and I helped plant long ago. Her overgrown palabin lilac needs to be rejuvenated. I have one of my own I need to tend to too, and late winter or early spring is the perfect time, just as the plant is coming out of dormancy. There are two ways to do it: cutting back a third of the branches each year to six to eight inches, cutting out the dead wood in the center of the plant, and doing so for three years in a row until the plant is completely rejuvenated. That way, you can have some blooms each year during the restoration as lilacs bloom on old wood, or you can do a total rejuvenation in one year, which is what I will do with Bonnie's plant. I'll do the 1/3 method with mine, just to have a comparison that maybe I'll photograph. That'll be fun. 

Mary Stone  03:18
Bonnie also has an enormous burning bush outside her kitchen window that her parents planted when they lived there. I suggested she replace it with a native plant, highlighting the beauty and versatility of Oak Leaf Hydrangea for all Seasons we spoke about in episode 173 that turns into glorious model tones of reds in the fall. I just adore oak leaf hydrangeas, but because of the origin of her burning bush, Bonnie has an attachment to it, and so we are going to actually cut that plant to within one to three inches of the ground. I'm delighted that Bonnie has agreed to the drastic measure, having seen the outcomes of intermittent pruning that has caused an overly dense plant. But again, I wish I could encourage her to remove the plant completely, because it is indeed very invasive, and it's in fact, banned in 20 states across the country, including next door in Pennsylvania. But it's hard to get rid of things or plants that originate from loved ones, but our memories last forever, don't they? 

Mary Stone  04:20
Then she has a very special plant that I look forward to tackling, although I don't have a lot of familiarity with pruning them, and that is a boxwood Graham Blandy. Ken Druce, who's a well known author nearby, who I know pretty well, has a garden that has them, and he cleverly lassos them with yarn to exaggerate their svelteness, making a striking invitation into a charming stone bridge topped in turf, leading to an alluring lawn embraced with glorious garden goodies. Maybe someday I will share a story I wrote about his garden. But anyway, Bonnie has not had her Graham Blandy ever pruned, and so it's growing rather large next to her house. And so I'm going to give it a haircut, but I'm going to do it carefully. You need to refurbish a boxwood over several years. You should never, in fact, remove more than a third of a boxwoods mass in a given time. And early spring is the best time using clean tools, because there are so many boxwood diseases. Boxwood blight is devastating, many of them. So the Graham Blandy grows to be 15 feet tall, which I think hers is, and it's about 18 to 24 inches wide, but you can maintain the height at five feet if you prune it occasionally. And since it's never been pruned, I'm afraid to top it, because actually topping a plant is not a good idea because it weakens the top canopy, and if there's a snow load, that could devastate the plant. So I will dig in when I get there and see what I find to give it a haircut. 

Mary Stone  05:49
And it's fun to revisit another client of Marty and mine, and that is Anne of Scotch Plains New Jersey, whose lovely garden we designed and installed several years ago. Ann loves lavender, harvesting the bounty of blooms as potpourri and enjoying them in her beautiful garden. Pruning lavender can be tricky and take some finesse, just as growing it does, unless you have well drained soil, full sun and a good air flow around the plants. They are best pruned each year to improve vigor and extend their life. You can prune lavender after the bloom or up to mid spring without foregoing this year's blooms. And while you're at it, you can use the cuttings to propagate new plants by dipping the ends into rooting hormone and starting them in moist, sandy potting mix. 

Mary Stone  06:32
English lavender. Lavendoola Augustifolia is the most common and toughest lavender often used to form a low hedge around an herb garden. To keep it compact, you have to cut English lavender by two thirds or three nodes above the bare wood in mid August, allowing new shoots to harden off before winter, then tidying them up with a light pruning in April. When tending to plants that have not been heavily pruned each year and have become overly woody, you'll need to phase in pruning to rejuvenate the plant. Trim each branch by a third or a half, never down to the brown wood, ensuring viable leaves remain on the plant, thin out the oldest stems to encourage new growth. Then prune lightly again in the fall to shape the plant. 

Mary Stone  07:17
And then there's a different way to prune the later blooming lavendula inter media that have longer flowering stems, which are lovely, flowing with the wind, and that's what Anne has. They are less tough, though, and cannot be pruned to the leafless, bare wood. They are best cut in late August to the mound of foliage below their spent flowering stems. Remember, lavender won't rejuvenate on old wood. So if that's what you're left with, it's time to replace your dead wood with something new. Same is true in our lives. Garden dilemmas? AskMaryStone.com.

Mary Stone  07:55
 Speaking of rejuvenation and removing dead wood, spring is a perfect time to clean things out. Clean things out of your home, clean things up in your garden and in your garden of life, which includes improving our outlook on things. Because all the controversy, all the divisiveness, it's hard to stay positive, but we can find respite in nature and in our gardens. There's something greater at work going on here, and only the collective energy and actions of individuals and communities can really turn things around. 

Mary Stone  08:26
It makes me think of Vicki Johnson whose tips on Encouraging Indoor Blooms of Hope we shared in episode 196. She sends me the most lovely cards, and I received one last week that really speaks to me. I want to share it with you. The front of the card has a beautiful photo of one of her beloved cats, named Lucy, sleeping in a nest of white bedding, and inside a poem by Langston Hughes, I'm going to read that to you. 

Mary Stone  08:54
It's called the dream keeper. Bring me all your dreams, you dreamers, bring me all of your heart melodies that I may wrap them in a blue cloud cloth away from the two rough fingers of the world. 

Mary Stone  09:10
Yes, indeed, the rough fingers, the controversy, the divisiveness. Let's wrap them in love. Instead, I wrote Vicki back after receiving the card. Hello, beautiful Vicki, the photo of Lucy the dream keeper, what a lovely poem. And your drawings are filled with the warm and fuzzy love we all crave and deserve. The feeling as though we deserve it part doesn't come naturally for most of us. I don't think maybe it does before life gives us stretch marks, but I think it does for cats and dogs and flowers and trees, and it naturally comes from dear friends like you. Thank you for sharing your love with me. Only love can turn our world around away from the two rough fingers of our world. Love you, beautiful one.

Mary Stone  10:00
So that's a note to Vicki, but I share that sentiment with all of you, because our community of listeners, our community of those that love to nurture nature, that appreciate it, that emanate the love within them with the people they are interacting with, can change the world. So thank you for sharing this time with me. It means so much, and I really, really appreciate you sharing this podcast with your friends and family members so more join us in learning and growing in this garden of life. Thanks so much. I will see you next time on the screen porch. I got really chilly, by the way, in my sweatshirt, but I just stuck it out because I love being outdoors. Don't you? Enjoy every minute.

Mary Stone  10:47
You can follow garden dilemmas on Facebook or online at Garden dilemmas.com and on Instagram at hashtag Mary Elaine Stone. Garden Dilemmas Delights and Discoveries is produced by Alex Bartling. Thanks for coming by. I look forward to chatting again from my screen porch and always remember to embrace the unexpected in this garden of life. Have a great day.