trees

In Zone 4/5, upper Hudson River valley in NYS, we have glorious autumns
followed by five months of dormancy, bitter winds , and hopefully the right
amount of snow to blanket our perennial beds.  If we are to enjoy these months
of winter we have to rely on our trees and shrubs to remind us that our garden
is there, just another and different kind of garden involvement.

The mainstay of my winter garden is the evergreens - white pine, hemlock,
balsam and juniper.  They glow against a snowy landscape, casting lavender
shadows on a sunny day.  Since my land is flat, I have to create a balance
with diagonal lines and this I do with a lot of looking out the window and a
little creative pruning.

 Every fall I bring down hemlock and white pine seedlings, maybe 5-6" tall,
from camp in the Adirondacks and I plant them in a  little yard-square nursery
I save for them.  Nothing happens for a year, but then they take off and I
start pruning them.  After about three years I give them away at our Coop Ext.
Spring Swap - nice fat little babies, or - and this has been fun  -  I "stool"
them.  I cut off the leader, trim surrounding growth and wait another year -
at which time they begin to fill in nicely.  I hate "lollypop shrubbery"  so I
hand prune in late winter and always try to prune where there is an outward-
facing bud - so you get two for one.

 Obviously I'm not being technical, and maybe I've reinvented the wheel, but
years ago when we bought this tiny overgrown garden which had been neglected
for years - lots of trees, a chicken run, some moribund grape arbors and a
burning barrel, I was lucky to have a visit from a relative who was with the
Forestry School at Syracuse, and he patiently taught me as we worked our way
thru a jungle of rhodys, etc..   Sometimes you have to wait a while to see the
benefits, and there's a scary period when you feel you may have done too much,
but it's a real thrill to restore a rhody from an overgrown monster to a truly
beautiful flowering plant.

Well, the sun is shining, it's 35o, spring will be here soon and I'm headed
for the great outdoors with my Florian Rachet Clipper (great tool!) in hand.

Betty Barrows
Kinderhook, NY Zone 5
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