Clean up Pruning on Yews

Taxus Yew Plantings

Most ornamental plantings need selective pruning. As well as Taxus Yew shrubs and hedges. Many homeowners, landscapers and groundskeepers will just shear these full evergreens until they have out grown themselves. Making the proper pruning cuts to these shrubs will help keep the specimen at the desired height and shape. Clean up pruning or what is to referred to as pocket and knuckle cuts are a necessity with all ornamental s  and especially the ones that we are constantly shearing.

Clean up,pocket or knuckle cut.

Reaching into the yew and cutting out knuckles in several different locations of the plant will allow for air and light to get to the center of the plant. Thus making it easier to shear when the time comes and creating new growth in the middle of the plant. Continued shearing with out these cuts will eventually cause the plant to have only growth on the outside of it and will also result in a plant that will be stressed.

The Knuckle

The knuckle has several stems growing off of it. All the green leaf tissue growth towards the top. By removing a few of the more sheared knuckle creates the pocket that will allow for light air and new growth. A continued healthy specimen at a proper height in the landscape. Remember, don't be afraid to make the cuts, where ever you do make a cut will result in the growth of 5 or more new stems. Also do not remove more then a third of the plant.




                                                 The Legend of the Brook

As a kid and now into adult life I have lived along the brook as we called it back in the day. The body of water is really the South Branch of the Mill River. A stream that starts in E.L. or Hampden I think. The legend has it that a kid drowned in the brook And where I grew up in 16 Acres the brook was often used for recreation. So much so that many of my older brothers would be down there fishing quite often. Yet my father never would allow me to go down there and he would always talk about some kid who drowned in quick sand down there. He could have been making the whole thing up, but to me it was believable. And finally when he did allow me to go on a venture all the other kids to the great brook, that when I arrived at the woods I jumped into a pile of leafs that contained a yellow jackets nest. Well as the story goes, there were still bees coming out of my shorts when they got me home. Being three or four at the time all I really remember is the first couple of stings, then being in the bath tub at home before our neighbor Mr. Wright joked with all the other adults about my naked body covered with baby powder. My mother guessed that I was stung 150 times.
 

South Branch of the Mill River East Longmeadow Ma.

I remember the brook being a great recreational tool for us growing up, is it still today I wonder?  Some of those events as I recall are watching two of my brothers catch fish in the brook. Rafting down the steam. Sucker fish being blow up with M-80s, Several forts built along the brook, my two failed attempts at jumping the brook in a sled, Andy Dutkos successful jump over the brook on a bike and several friends falling into the brook after a night of drinking at the greatest fort ever built, The Cabin.



Spring is just around the corner, buds are starting to swell on the forsythia. Will mother nature rear her ugly head one more time, my guess is.... Count On It.

                                                       Eddie Pagliaro C.G.M.

P.S. When will people learn, you cannot mix several different prescription pills with a gallon of vodka. Sleep tight Whitney Houston.