Preaching about cuts and stubs

Every season I see bad pruning cuts on trees. Usually, people make a cut and leave a short stub, instead of making a proper cut at the bark branch collar. And what’s wrong with leaving stubs?

Normally, when you make a pruning wound on a tree, it reacts by immediately starting repairs. It takes time, but eventually the wound is covered up and all is good. But when you leave a short stub, the tree can’t cover up the wound. It can’t physically cover up a short stub.

The stub eventually dies and breaks off. But before it does, it can allow bacteria and fungi to enter the tree with catastrophic consequences. Plus, it looks awful when your tree is covered in short stubs.

Now, I’ve covered all of this in previous blog posts, and it may not be news to you. It was my buddy’s text that inspired this blog post.

Slime flux

It’s easy for me to show you tree stubs on trees but what is much harder to show is actual diseases entering a tree. That’s where my buddy comes in with his beautiful text message. He had a red maple on his site with vertical cracks and orange slime showing. He was correctly wondering what it was. Bingo!

This very nicely illustrates the dangers of open tree wounds. It doesn’t take much for fungi or bacteria to move in and this slime flux or bacterial wetwood is one example. That’s how we identified the orange slime that was oozing out of a frost crack. Since we didn’t prune this maple, we can assume it’s a frost crack.

Luckily, my online search revealed that bacterial wetwood isn’t fatal for mature trees; they can fight it off. Younger trees may not be so lucky. But it’s best not to push your luck in the first place.

Make good pruning cuts!

Extras, extras

I love how gigs have a tendency to grow in my side-hustle operation. Just consider a simple $50 lawn cut: it’s a quick job, done every two weeks. I increase my revenue and the owner doesn’t have to stress about her lawn. A nice looking lawn also means that her neighbors can stop whispering.

Then come the extras, like weeding a vegetable patch before visitors arrived from out of province. More easy revenue but in this blog post we first have to backtrack to spring 2025.

Sad, sad, sad

I love the first lawn cuts of the season because winter is over and my revenue is about to go up. When I arrived at this house and started cutting the grass, it was the lady of the house who brought out the green bin for me. It was weird but I kept cutting. Then, when I finished the lady came over and gave me the bad news. He husband passed away just weeks ago after a fall. I was stunned because the old man was super friendly. He’d ask about my business and my family; and when I knocked down the back lane he’d tip me nicely. Now he was gone.

The poor guy tripped over the curb and broke his hips and back. He died three days later.

Vegetable patch

This brings us to her vegetable patch which was obviously full of weeds because her late husband used to take care of it. I did the weeding based on a two-hour quote. That’s the only way to make good cash: create a quote and then do the work quickly. I wouldn’t want to sit there weeding for exactly two hours.

You will notice in the after picture that I left two plants alone. One is a Hellebore which has been in the family for decades, allegedly. The owner staked it off for me but I know a Hellebore when I see one.

At the other we left poppies standing because the husband planted them; and who knows, he might be watching.

Conclusion

If you’re doing landscape side-hustle gigs, you can expect them to grow as clients ask you to do more tasks.

And remember to seize the day. Do something with the time you’re given.

Rest In Peace Garry!

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Vinca minor welfare check

This past week I stopped to check on a periwinkle planting I did a few seasons ago. The area is a small sloping bed and planting periwinkle (Vinca minor) was our last resort try. For whatever reason, grass wouldn’t grow on the “hump”.

It’s possible that water moves downslope and therefore leaves the bed too dry, or there is competition from the oak tree (Quercus palustris).

We top-dressed and over-seeded the spot, and we also tried hydroseeding: the grass wouldn’t survive!

Vinca minor

Since there was already a lot of periwinkle growing above the bed, under the oak tree, adding more was a no-brainer, even though many people consider periwinkle invasive. Nurseries still sell the plant and why not? It has nice purple flowers, and it grows fast like an invasive plant. If you need a groundcover plant, vinca is a good choice.

Roughly two seasons ago I planted many baby plants and wished them well. I knew they would do well. It was nice to see them spreading and filling out the open spaces. I just found one small bare spot but overall the planting was a success. Check my YouTube short below. Click like and subscribe, too!

Conclusion

It’s a lot of fun to check on your work, especially when you have success. And in this case, success was almost guaranteed because I knew that Vinca minor was a fast-growing groundcover plant. It saved us after we failed to establish grass on the “hump”. To this day I don’t know why grass wouldn’t take there.

If you need a fast-growing groundcover plant, Vinca minor is a good choice, especially if you can keep it contained. It is considered borderline invasive and some people discourage you from planting it. Personally I find its purple flowers attractive.

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Why the struggle?

It was late July and very hot when I did a welfare check on newly planted Portuguese laurels (Prunus lusitanica). One specimen showed a lot of brown foliage inside and the pregnant unit owner was rightfully worried. Hmm.

So I dropped to my knees to see what was going on. There was a lot of soil amender piled against the plants which can be a problem. When the owner waters, I’m almost sure the water barely penetrates the several inches of soil amender.

We need water in the root zone!

The fix?

Just like with tree planting, you can’t pile soil or mulch against the trunk like a volcano. I’ve written numerous posts about the many problems with mulch volcanoes. If you don’t know what I’m talkin about, please search through my YouTube shorts.

So I reached in and pulled the soil amender away from the stems until I could see the root flare. That’s the zone where stems become roots. When you do this, you create a well.

Then the next step is turning your water hose on low trickle so you can slow soak the plant for a few minutes. With the soil amender pushed out of the way, it’s almost guaranteed we’ll get water into the root zone.

I will try to check on the laurels when I’m in the area next. It would be a shame to lose them because they have beautiful glossy foliage and they’re pricey. Over time they will provide a nice screen for the owners and their kids.

Conclusion

Adding soil amender after planting gives the plants a nice kick and keeps moisture inside. But never pile the soil against the trunk: this is true for trees and shrubs. The laurels in this post probably couldn’t get water deep into the root zone because the amender absorbed whatever water the owner gave it.

In my experience, homeowners don’t slow soak their plants. Their treat them like their cars at a car wash. If you’re not sure about moisture levels, stick your finger into the planting hole to get an idea.

Over-watering can also be a problem: water displaces oxygen so too much water could suffocate your plants.

Resilient Magnolia

I have known this one Magnolia tree for ten years. I still remember seeing it for the first time because there was an obvious wound at the base from mowers. Poorly trained landscapers refused to get off the curb and mowed in a straight line, hitting the tree once a week. Now, ten years later, we have lessons to learn from this Magnolia case.

Mowers and tree bark don’t mix

Your mower doesn’t have the right of way. I train my workers to avoid tree collisions at all costs because trees are more valuable than grass.

When you hit trees you stress them out. Now instead of investing resources into new growth, they have to work on repairs. When I look at the street I can see that the other Magnolias are bigger, probably because they don’t get abused by mower decks weekly.

Weekly injuries can kill the tree.

Are we done?

A few weeks ago I shot a video of my worker mowing around the tree, never getting close enough to injure it. See the video below.

And then it hit me: if you mow straight today you will probably not touch the tree because the gap at the base is large enough ten years later to allow the mower to pass by! That’s comical.

Why isn’t the tree dead?

Trees are resilient! This particular Magnolia is smaller than its cousins nearby but it’s still standing and producing flowers and seed pods, after ten years of abuse. So why isn’t it dead? Pure luck?

Not really. Trees can build different protective walls around wounds which protect the tree from decay, diseases and insects. I suspect that’s what this Magnolia used its precious resources for: building real walls, not useless walls like Trump’s border wall.

The technical term is “compartmentalization” which refers to trees sealing off the wound. In arboriculture we use the acronym CODIT for compartmentalization of decay in trees.

Conclusion

Keep your mowers away from tree bark. Period. No excuses. Make it a habit and train your workers well.

Repeated wounding can stress and kill your tree.

Learning about a new perennial

I’ve been landscaping for twenty six seasons and there is always something new to learn. Especially plants. And recently I’ve been running into a yellow-flowered perennial which we consider a weed on our strata sites because we don’t want it.

I have a client who struggles with this unwanted plant in his front lawn. Also, my commercial sites have the plant growing through my heather plants which makes it hard to pull them out. And even worse, workers send me pictures of it and ask if they should remove it. I even photographed the plant on my sister’s ranch outside Kamloops, British Columbia.

Since I had no idea what it was called, I had to look it up.

Red Seal Vas gets schooled

So, first, we have to identify the plant. Luckily, it shows up in my copy of “Popular wildflowers of BC and Vancouver Island” by Neil L. Jennings. It’s called Lotus corniculatus or Bird’s Foot Trefoil. Jennings tells us that this was a pasture plant in Europe. It’s a low-growing, sprawling, creeping perennial.

I don’t mind the look; I like yellow flowers. But it’s the sprawling, creeping habit that’s annoying because it’s hard to pull out of heather plants. Bird’s Foot Trefoil flowers from June to September and you can expect the flowers to turn into seed pods.

So is it a weed? Technically yes, if you don’t want it. Otherwise, it’s a decent looking perennial wildflower from the pea family. I got the worker who texted me about it to pull it out because it was smothering groundcover plants. If I find growing in open spots, I will most likely leave it alone.

And the next time my workers ask me about it, I will tell them it’s Lotus corniculatus and refer them to this brilliant blog post.

Conclusion

Learning never stops! I’m used to that but I’m not used to all of a sudden seeing the same unknown plant everywhere. I had to look it up this weekend.

So keep working on your plant identification skills.

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Watch it!

Last week we covered mistimed pruning on a Hydrangea paniculata and this week we cover the same topic but with a different shrub. Now, I’ve written about Callicarpa pruning accidents before; but I have to do it again because last week I witnessed a landscaper taking liberties with the shrubs.

It started very innocently: mid-season pruning is concerned with keeping shrubs in decent shape. Roses and dogwood shrubs definitely looked out of shape by July. With limited space in multi-family complexes, shrubs are often sheared into submission. And many can take the abuse because they push out new growth right away.

But you can’t treat every shrub the same way. Remember the Hydrangea paniculata from last week?

Beautyberry

If you move very fast it’s easy to move from a dogwood shrub to a Callicarpa and start shearing. Luckily I noticed the tiny flower clusters before pruning. So I did prune the edges of the shrub because the flowert clusters aren’t terminal. You see them one or two nodes down which allows you to reduce the shrub size slightly without losing any flowers.

The landscaper I witnessed shaved off a lot of flowers.

The common name beautyberry is a tip off: we’re not really worried about flower shows because the flowers turn into beautiful purple berry clusters. And those clusters persist into winter when all of the foliage is gone. That’s when they really pop: purple berries really stand out on an otherwise bare shrub. Personally, I love the look, so I try not to shave off any flowers in mid-season.

Conclusion

Get to know your shrubs and you’ll be rewarded, especially if you time your pruning correctly. Clipping Callicarpa into shape in mid-season isn’t worth sacrificing winter berries for. I love the way the berries pop in winter on bare shrubs.

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Time your pruning correctly

It’s important to time your shrub pruning properly, especially with showy specimens like Hydrangea paniculata. When this hydrangea blooms, it’s an awesome show with white panicles covering the shrub. But you have to make sure the small, developing flowers don’t go missing when they’re still inconspicuous.

I witnessed one such accidental pruning earlier this summer. Dudes were talking and snipping shoots that looked out of shape. But they failed to notice the small developing flowers. By the time one of the owners noticed the deed, it was too late.

Oh well!

Now, luckily the lady was good about it. “It happens” attitude is nice to have but as a landscape manager I want my crews well trained. The lesson here is that Hydrangea paniculata should be pruned in fall, winter or early spring before flowers start developing. Once you see flowers, the shrub is off limits. Leave it alone and enjoy the show from mid-summer on.

When I examined the shrub, the developing flowers were still green and not easy to spot so the workers need to know the shrub and correct pruning time. That takes time and repetition.

I got to see the shrub in late July and, from a distance, it looked ok. But up close, you can see the incorrect cuts up top where the growth spikes would have attracted landscapers bent on controlling every shrub.

So, it’s not a complete disaster but the show is slightly diminished, which is unfortunate.

Conclusion

Be careful when you prune! Carefully consider your targets and ask yourself why you’re pruning. When you see a few spikes on top of your shrub, relax, and examine the shrub for flowers. This should be easy to do in your own garden because you know your shrubs well.

If you do mess up, then learn from it and do better in the following season. It probably isn’t a huge disaster.

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