Tag Archives: pruning

Got Clippers?

"February is for Pruning", mixed media by Kerry McFall

February is a good time for sleeping in, especially if you’re a groundhog, or a cat.  (I suppose that “sleeping in” is kind of a misnomer for cats because it implies actually getting up at some point in 24 hours.)  If you have a garden, standard wisdom is that February is also when you need to get off your buns, grab your clippers and the bucket, and get out there and prune!

For our two baby fruit trees out front, it almost seems a shame to snip those plucky little branches, but I know from experience that they are way too skinny to manage the wieght of Asian pears, so snip I did.  Then I tackled the herb pots, and I even dead-headed the hydrangea.

I brought one of the pear branches in, and a lacy blossom to sketch.  The pear “stick” is full of color – wine-red buds, green-gold bark with ivory blisters.  But the blossom is a literal ghost of its once brilliant blue self, papery, stained with mold and mildew, translucent.  Even so, it’s lovely, and now I’ve accomplished two things today – pruning, and a sketch!  It feels good.  Who knows, maybe I will get the snow peas planted this year!