Bushwhacking! Proper Shrub Pruning by M J Lechner

Early spring is a good time to sharpen those pruners and get busy thinning and shaping the shrubs and bushes on your property. 

The first thing to consider is whether or not  blooms form on old branches or on new wood.  Forsythia, lilacs and hydrangea all bloom on last year’s growth, so they should be left alone until after they flower.  Hibiscus, many clematis and buddleias (butterfly bushes) bloom on fresh growth, so they can be thinned and shaped before the bloom season. 

There are two ways to approach pruning your shrubs: one is to thin and the other is to regenerate the entire plant.  Thinning is the less drastic approach.
Remove all the dead, diseased and weak (thin-diameter) branches.
Remove all the crossing, rubbing branches and those that lay on the ground.
Remove some of the larger stems (10-50%) from the older branches.
Selectively shorten and thin the remaining stems.
Remove some of the new sucker growth

Regenerative pruning is not for the faint of heart.  It literally means cutting your shrub all the way to the ground and letting it regenerate.  This is best done when a shrub has really gotten out of hand.  Before doing so, consider the following:
Is the shrub healthy and vigorous?
Is this a shrub that will produce abundant new stems?  (Old lilacs that are non-producers or tend to develop powdery mildew are perfect candidates!).
Is this a grafted shrub?  If so, be careful not to cut below the graft.

This is not always the easiest of garden chores, but doing before the heat of summer and the extra weight of  leaves makes it a whole lot easier. Get busy!

Wanted Wood Cigar Boxes

I am working on some craft ideas and I am in need of wooden cigar boxes.

I am going to be checking with some local stores to see if they have any. I heard a lot of places just throw them away!

Can you imagine throwing away a perfectly good cigar box?

Anyway I have some ideas I would like to try and am in need of some wood boxes.

If you have any you'd like to get rid of email me and we can make arrangements.

Thanks.

My Trip to Chicago Last Week

I took a short study break last week, spent some time on campus at Trinity Seminary (awesome library!) and got caught up on some reading I have been wanting to do for quite some time. I actually got through 5 books including James Boice's"The Christ of the Empty Tomb" and D.A. Carsons "Scandalous", both of which were great helps in preparing for our Easter message this Sunday. It was a fantastic and, I'm afraid, much needed 5 days of down time.

I went from the West side of Chicago to the South side at the end of the week, to attend a convention of friends who collect 1/43 scale models. I have made a great bunch of friends and we all congregate for one weekend a year around a show that features some more of our friends who are dealers and makers of these little jewels.

They're all a great group of folks and the fun is clean and, generally, G rated. We all have families and share news about each other while we dote over our 'little cars". All these folks know who I am and what I do and respect that without letting it hinder some really great relationships. In other words, there are no awkward "Oops, he's a Pastor!" moments and our time together is relaxed. There are, indeed moments, I can share the Gospel or be open about the Scriptures and I'm thankful for the freedom to do so. I think all this comes from them being a great group of truly decent and likable men who share a common interest. They have been very supportive in many ways. Some of them have listened to our sermons online and many of them read this blog.

I thought I'd share some of this with you. Here's the posting I placed on one of the online forums our group participates in:

For those who haven't made a show yet, it's quite an experience. The show itself is a lot of fun but the weekend event and the people you meet are what really makes it special.

Thanks to Tom Kinney, who made the arrangements, we had dinner on Friday evening with a small group of guys who came to town for the show. On Saturday evening, there was a much larger group that met at a local pizza place for a great time of fellowship and pizza.

The highlights of the weekend are always the great folks you meet. At the Forum43 Hospitality Booth, we were able to meet a lot of Forum folks and had the chance to meet some new friends and get caught up with some old ones.

Steve Overy from Illustra was with us this year, a fantastic guy. Charlie Barnette came over from England again, another great guy. Mikhail Bashmashnikov of B&G, Dale Dannefer, Gregg Gunn, Bob Hooper of Dominion models, Buz Kerkel of RT 66 Models, Jim Cowen of Automodello and Howie Levine all had large and well stocked displays.