In our profession as aesthetic pruner-arborists, too often we encounter shrubs and shrub-trees that have been improperly pruned. Often they’re pruned (sheared) into geometric shapes like cubes, spheres, rectangles, pyramids, cones or even lollipops. I call this cubistic pruning—like cubistic art, if you can even call it art. Often a client will move into a home where the plants have been pruned in this manner by the previous owners, and the new owners want to restore the plant to its natural shape; they want to de-sqaurify, de-spherify, de-conify it, if you will. This often can be done, but a tree can’t be transformed from a geometric shape to its natural form overnight. It may take a few years of corrective or restorative pruning to accomplish this. In this video, we will demonstrate the first step taken to de-squarify a camellia that has been pruned and sheared for years into a cube shape. Please enjoy.
I have to say your use of technology and the art of pruning has a tremendous impact. For to long the discipline and knowledge of the profession of gardening has been looked down upon! Thank you for bringing to the light the great and first profession.
Thank you. If more people understood the truth that you mention that “tending, keeping, protecting, stewarding the garden” is the first and greatest profession (Genesis 2:15), the world and the people in it would be an exponentially better place. Perhaps the puny efforts of this blog and the videos we make will help to move things in a better direction on this planet. In part, I’m driven by the aphorism: If the world around you is a mess and there’s little or nothing that you can do about it, then tend your own garden well.” Let us go forth, a Bible in one hand and a pruners in the other! HalleluYah!