It’s mid-June, and everything in the garden is full and lush. Your Japanese maple might be getting a little too full for your taste, outgrowing its space, crowding the neighbors, looking like a boring blob. But take the fear out of pruning with these easy steps.
Pruning any plant is necessary for several reasons — to control size or shape, to remove dead or diseased branches, to improve structure or to stimulate new growth. Pruning also can improve the health of a plant by increasing air circulation, allowing more light into the center and reducing disease problems.
Japanese maples do not need a lot of pruning. June is the best time of year to prune them, though, as the leaves have become full-size. The least favorable time to prune would be early- to mid-fall, just as the tree is sending nutrients and energy into storage for the cold months.
Bring out your tree’s personality by symmetrically thinning about a third of the small twigs throughout the tree and any dead twigs. Japanese maples less than 15 years old are prone to put on new growth that looks like a buggy whip — unattractively skinny with no side branches. Shortening or removing the buggy whips only stimulates more of the same. So be patient. You will be surprised to find that, as the whips age, they fatten up, develop lateral branches and turn into nice-looking scaffold limbs.
Make sure not to thin too much on the sides of the tree if they are exposed to sunlight, as that could cause sunburn. Use the “one-third rule” when deciding where or how far back to cut a branch — that is prune to an upward or outward growing branch that is at least a third as big as the one you are cutting.
Avoid trying to restrict the height of a Japanese maple. It won’t work. The tree will simply grow faster with thin, unruly branches. You can reduce the height of the tree a bit by removing branches that grow in an upward direction as far as a lower branch.
The width of these trees, on the other hand, can be somewhat modified. Trim side growth and foliage that is hanging too low by cutting down to branches farther back in the tree.
It’s time-consuming to prune a little, then stand back to decide where the next cut will be, but when you’re finished, your new tree will have an airy, delicate appearance, allowing you to see into the tree and admire its attractive branching pattern.
Be savvy with beans
If you have just a little more space for veggies, give bush beans a try. They’re easy to grow, and you’ll love how much better beans right off the vine taste compared to the ones you buy at the grocery store.
Before planting, lightly fertilize the soil, working a cup of organic vegetable food per 10 square feet. You can plant from seeds or starts, but to avoid disease problems, don’t plant where beans grew last year and don’t work in the garden when leaves are wet.
Beans are shallow-rooted, so make sure to water regularly to keep the soil evenly moist, especially during hot weather. For peak flavor, pick when pods are as thick as a pencil. Pods should snap when bent.
One last ‘to do’
This week, apply your second fertilizer application for the year to your citrus and fruit trees. The last one should be done immediately after harvest.
Apply the fertilizer to the soil around the drip line of the tree, where feeder roots are located and scratch the surface. Water well.
As with all fertilizers, make sure the trees are moist before you fertilize. Young trees in their first, second or third growing season should receive half the rate of established trees.
If you have questions about your garden, e-mail me and I’ll be happy to help.
Jan Nelson, a California certified nursery professional at Plant Works in Ben Lomond, will answer questions about gardening in the Santa Cruz Mountains. E-mail her at
ja******@ao*.com
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