Pruning Arborvitae: Taboo or Maintenance?

We have an arborvitae hedge on one side of our driveway that is almost as high as our house. I was eyeballing it one day and decided it needed to be cleaned up. Nothing drastic, a little trim here and there and maybe a little off the top.

Anne was skeptical, being of the general opinion that arborvitae (Thuja) shouldn't be pruned.

Well, I didn't really want to PRUNE them, I just wanted to neaten them up a bit.

When I researched the subject, I discovered a wide variety of opinion ranging from prune them whenever and however you want and prune them in the spring before new growth to don't cut back into wood more than a year old and arborvitae don't need to be pruned. Hmmm. That covers all of the bases.

Some say topping will encourage bushier growth, some say it won't. I guess the former is more likely with younger, smaller plants. If I were buying, I'd certainly be looking for bushy, not tall and spindly.

There is one recurring piece of advice: beware of pruning out all of the green growth in an area or you may be looking at a bare spot for some time, perhaps permanently.

After discussing the results of my research with Anne, we decided to go ahead. I did a subtle trimming of "fat spots" and took a little off the top. I made no attempt to equalize the height. In my opinion, the individual plant heights varied too much for that approach. And, besides, I didn't really want a straight edge anyway.

The hedge was looking a little ragged and I just wanted to smooth out the look. The amount I took off the top ranged from nothing to a foot or so.

The result was subtle but it accomplished exactly what I set out to do and I like the rounded-dome look on the tops. So far, there are no negative side-effects to report.

Maybe next year I'll try growing clematis on them …

WR

Birch Envy

Here is the beautiful and beckoning entrance to a birch grove walk in a "secret" area at a nearby beach.

Will has a bad case of birch envy, there was a gorgeous specimen in the front yard where he grew up.  We've purchased two so far -- a weeper and an ostensibly white variety (I think it was swapped with another while young) -- and they both are susceptible to leaf borers and lose their leaves during the summer, looking scraggly and bare by late August. The weeper is white but the other one isn't giving any indication of being inclined in that direction.

Our weeping birch. We hope it likes its new location.

Being the organic gardeners we are, we went only as far as to spray the leaves on both with dormant oil at the time the borers were hatching. They made it through OK this year, but though they may have kept more leaves, they both were summarily moved to other, less prominent, locations. Unfortunately, the heat of the summer and the stress of transplant left them both alive, but not at their best.

We gave this ostensibly white birch a
second chance in a less prominent spot.

Someday our birch will come -- a beautiful, white, multi-trunked specimen that will never need spraying and will rustle in the wind, cast dappled shade and play host to chickadees. Sigh.


AR