Larry Weaner’s Home Landscape Series Part 2: Artisanal Pruning for Gardenesque Views #nativegarden

All right, here we go. [Applause] Weed whipping paths is not that exciting. I understand. So, that’s not what you tuned in here for in all likelihood. However, what we’re going to do in this meadow right now, uh, I think is pretty interesting. This is an experiment in, let’s call it going with the flow. And so, we got Canada golden rod. Well, if I just let this happen, it would be 6 feet tall and it would be mostly Canada golden rod. Instead of mowing the lawn once a week, maybe three times a year at most, you come in and just selectively cut the plants that you don’t want to get too big. Our strategy here from a golden rod standpoint is around the edges, we’re going to cut them fairly low so they come back short. right right center and left center. We’re going to leave it taller, but between those taller uh patches on the right and left, we’re going to cut a swath of short right up the middle. Why? The tall patches are framing that oak trunk. If we cut it low in the middle, you’re seeing basically an alley, a window through. Okay, so we are now going to prune the meadow. And actually, John has come up with, I think, a really nice term for the type of pruning we’re doing here. And he calls it arteasonal pruning. Did I pronounce that right? I have trouble pronouncing that. Yeah. Artisal pruning which is very selective manipulation um uh in this case of native plants to kind to create a a garden uh effect. All right. So we’ve got our pruners here and let’s do our first uh cut which is going to be to open up or reduce the size of that center view to the oak tree. You do the most thin plates where you just chop up your cut pieces. John makes a good point. If you just cut it up and leave it in pieces here, it doesn’t look unsightly organic, but you’re you’ve got the organic matter remaining. Yeah. The reason this view is very important is if you look back at the house, you’ll see uh looking straight through that arbor, that’s our dining room table behind that window. And if you look out that window, you look right through this arbor and right at this oak tree that we are now cutting a window for.