The Nature of Things

There is a heinous crime that is being committed in serial fashion in gardens and landscapes all over this area, all over Texas, indeed all over the South, at this time of year. It involves the brutal amputation of the tops of certain flowering trees called crape (some prefer crepe) myrtles, without regard to their form and growth habit.  It is a act that is performed, presumably, to encourage more blooms, though I'm not sure there is really any research to support that reasoning. What it does is to truncate a tree that normally prefers to grow in a perfectly lovely free-flowering habit. Here's what I mean. This is a crape myrtle in my backyard. The picture was taken in summer three years ago, before the problems that I will shortly relate. This particular tree has stood here for more than 25 years, so it is a relatively old tree, and up until recently it had been a beautiful feature of my garden. In all its years in the landscape, the tree had never been pruned except to remov...

Pruning can be a very therapeutic exercise - for the gardener as well as the plant. I am a non-violent person. It is difficult for me to imagine a situation where I would resort to violence, but I admit there are things happening in this world that at times just make me want to bash something or someone - figuratively, if not literally. Enter my pruning shears. They are Felco #12s and they fit my hand perfectly. They make pruning an almost sensual experience, but at the same time they allow me to vent all my hostility and anger in perfect comfort. As I make my cuts, I think about all the people on the world stage who have irritated or appalled me recently. Whack! Take that, Rush Limbaugh. Snip! That's for you, Pat Robertson. I believe you need to be pruned WAY back, Sarah Palin. You, too, Glenn Beck. And as for you, national media, I'm taking you back to the trunk! Maybe the new growth will be more robust and productive. Today, I worked on the grapevines and the appl...