WOOSTER, Ohio -- Learn how to shape up your plants while they’re sleeping when Ohio State University’s Secrest Arboretum holds a Dormant Pruning Workshop March 23.
“We’ll do some thinning of deciduous shrubs such as winterberry, some heading back of others, such as spirea, and some thinning and structural pruning of trees,” said Ken Cochran, the arboretum’s program coordinator and one of the workshop’s instructors.
Late winter and early spring are ideal for most pruning, says a University of Minnesota fact sheet.
“(Pruning) just before spring growth starts leaves fresh wounds exposed for only a short length of time before new growth begins the wound sealing process,” the fact sheet says. “Another advantage of dormant pruning is that it’s easier to make pruning decisions without leaves obscuring plant branch structure.”
Bring your own tools if you have them, Cochran said -- hand pruners, hedge cutters, pole saws and so on. But there will be some tools, too, you can borrow. Also be sure to wear boots.
Hours are 8 a.m.-noon in Secrest Arboretum, part of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC), 1680 Madison Ave., Wooster. Meet at the Seaman Orientation Plaza about 1.7 miles from OARDC’s main entrance.
Registration costs $50 per person and is limited to 12. Download a registration form at http://go.osu.edu/CAz or call 330-464-2148 to receive one in the mail. Call the same number for more information.
OARDC is the research arm of Ohio State’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences and is the largest university agricultural bioscience research center in the United States.
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Link: “Pruning Trees and Shrubs,” University of Minnesota Extension, http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/dg0628.html.