Serial pruner is cutthroat but she gets the job done

Edwina Scissorhands has visited my garden. Again.

There has been another extreme pruning incident. This time a dwarf blue globe spruce (Picea pungens ‘Globosa’) was left two-thirds naked after a skirt lifting of raggedy lower branches.

In previous years, there has been a highly unfortunate boxwood hedge situation that went from “cloud pruning” to geometric shape pruning. Two years later those boxwoods have finally grown out of the weird angles that were forced upon them.

There was also the dwarf Alberta spruce (Picea glauca ‘Conica’) that was so defiled by errant pruning that it ended up as compost.

Edwina Scissorhands is the moniker I’ve assigned to my pruning-happy alter ego, who needs nothing more than a whiff of “what’s the worst that can happen?” to inflict trauma upon the shrubs and trees in my garden.

I can only describe this behavior as an out-of-body experience. Edwina works quickly and needs little encouragement. Things escalate from a sideways glance at a future victim that’s looking a little overgrown to a full-on assault with a potentially deadly pruning device. If the weapon is loppers or a hand saw, big decisions are made hastily. There is no do-over.

In the case of the dwarf blue globe spruce, which at 15 years old is no longer dwarf or a globe, there was quite a bit of unsightly dieback on the inner branches.

A minute later my alter ego was brandishing loppers and those lower branches didn’t stand a chance.

The result was a shrub pruned into something resembling a flat-topped lollipop, and while it was better than what it was five minutes earlier, it was a drastic change. A week later, I think I’ve come around to liking it, but I also know that it’s not long for this world. Plants have a practical life, and this one and its partner a few feet away have timed out. They’ll be replaced when suitable replacements are found.

Late summer, when the garden is a little overgrown and there are no urgent garden job, is a dangerous time for shrubs when Edwina Scissorhands is around, regardless of the fact that it’s rarely the correct time to prune.

Most trees and shrubs should be pruned immediately after they flower in spring or when they are dormant in winter. Pruning now can stress a plant, remove next year’s future flowers or encourage late-season growth that will not harden off in time for winter.

Edwina Scissorhands cares not. In my alter ego’s school of thought, the right time to prune is when you have the tools in your hands. Truth be told, my garden would be far more overgrown if it weren’t for these bursts of pruning exuberance. Edwina often prunes at the wrong time, but in many cases the practical alternative is not pruning at all, and that’s probably worse.

I made a note last week of a couple of shrubs that I should prune over winter. Only Edwina Scissorhands knows if they’ll escape the wrath of the pruning saw that long.