Evil twins
I’ve written several blog posts about the evil of power shearing rhododendrons. It looks awful and it shreds the stems and leaves. Now, today I walked by a hand-pruned rhododendron. I know the site well because the resident evil twin “landscapers” like to blow debris away from their complex and across the street. There it becomes somebody else’s problem.
They were the ones who did the pruning.
Ask why
It’s always a good idea to ask yourself why you are pruning. I do this with trees all the time just to calm down and assess. Why are we pruning? Why? What’s the idea.
Now, the evil twins probably had two reasons for pruning their rhododendron hard-you could almost call it “renovation” pruning. One was obstruction because the shrub is clearly positioned between walkways and a driveway. It’s possible somebody in the complex complained.
You will also notice lights strung out throughout the shrub and it’s possible they wanted them more exposed. I don’t know exactly.
Latent buds
Rhododendrons have latent buds that pop up when the top branches go missing. So, that way the pruning is fine. Once the buds open up, the shrub should green up nicely. But there won’t be any flowers this summer.
That’s because rhododendrons set their flowers some time after flowering. So, prune them right after flowering and then leave them alone. Renovation pruning in late March removes anything that might have flowered. Perhaps the walkway obstruction was very bad.
Walkway obstruction is a serious matter but, personally, I prefer to wait it out and prune rhodos after flowering. Rhododendrons are planted for their beautiful flowers and I think it’s savage to remove the flower buds just as spring hits. Now there won’t be any show, just sticks to look at.
One compromise would have been to prune out any branches sticking out into the walkways and leave the rest to flower.
Timing is critical in pruning.
