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Plant Life By Valerie Easton

Why Go Whacky?

Think twice and look sharp before you bring out the shears

THERE ARE TWO kinds of gardeners — those who allow plants a little leeway, and those who feel the need to impose order. For the latter, controlling nature is a constant struggle, often manifested in overpruning and rigid staking. Not to mention edging the grass with military precision.

Depending on where you fall on the spectrum, you may see the two extremes as lax vs. vigilant, or perhaps as holding the line rather than giving it up. But mostly it'll depend on if you're male or female. Gardens seem to be a place where men thwack, clip and cut their way to mastery, while women appreciate nature's unruliness. Now if you're a woman who prunes shrubs to stubs, or a man firmly in touch with his inner dervish, I apologize. But I have to say you're the exception, because this division seems to fall pretty consistently along male/female lines.

Not that there's anything wrong with a tidy garden. Who's to say where gardening skills leave off and compulsions begin? It's just when you feel the need to alter the innate shape of plants to suit expectations, or edge a bed so severely it looks cut with a razor blade, the neighbors will be sure you don't have enough to do. And a warning: I have a friend who looks at such a tightly controlled garden and declares that the couple who owns it isn't having much action in the bedroom. Could our gardens really reveal our frustrations and heartaches as clearly as they broadcast our skills and aesthetics?

Here's some wisdom from "The Wild Braid," by gardener/poet Stanley Kunitz, who died at age 100 this year: "There has to be a certain degree of domestication in a garden. The danger is that you can so tame your garden that it becomes a thing. It becomes landscaping." It's overzealous pruning and staking that turn home gardens into commercial-landscape look-alikes. Effective staking is a little like riding a bike uphill. I remember when I first heard that welcome advice to shift early and shift low. With staking, you need to stake early and stake well. If you wait until a plant flops, it will already have grown in ways that'll never look natural once it's pulled upright. So shell out what seems a ridiculous amount of money for hoops and cages (dark ones disappear against the foliage) as well as bamboo stakes, to make sure peonies, dahlias, daisies, delphinium and iris are well-supported without looking garroted.

The absolute worst garden sins take place with pruning shears. My best advice is to slow down, stand back and look closely at the shape a tree or shrub makes in the garden. Repeat to yourself, "Pruning is an art." If this mantra seems intimidating, or worse yet, a challenge to get in there and slash, why not call in a professional to do the job?

Before you even think about setting blade to limb, take a field trip to the Japanese garden in the Washington Park Arboretum or Kubota Gardens in the South End to see how gorgeous pines, maples and cherries look when pruned with restraint and respect. My other advice is to take a class from PlantAmnesty (see www.plantamnesty.com or call 206-783-9813 for a schedule of pruning classes and free information).

Remember that plants respond to pruning with vigorous growth, often the exact opposite effect you intended. If you do decide to prune, crawl inside a tree or shrub as much as possible and prune from the inside out, first taking out crossing or diseased limbs. Maybe that's all you'll need to do. Many plants are healthier and handsomer when left alone, so if you must prune, maybe roses, which benefit from a beheading every spring, are your ideal canvas.

It's possible to keep your shears sharp and your plants upright, yet allow a little respite around the edges. You may be surprised how nature meets you halfway, if you give it the chance.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net. Susan Jouflas is The Seattle Times assistant art director, newsfeatures.