Pruning is a necessary evil if you have a green thumb. No one likes to mention it since it is a lot of work and makes your plants look like crap, but it is necessary for growth. Pruning necessary for growth you say? Yep!...a contradictory concept, but true, nonetheless.
We all know the benefits; gets rid of dead, lifeless, diseased scrap, strengthens leggy branches, brings new life to otherwise struggling vegetation and always promotes better and bigger fruit. No one argues these merits but, it is painful to say the least. You can't help feeling like you are destroying the very thing you have nurtured from a tiny seed to become this lush green specimen where bigger must be better. (Well, that is only true in Texas, apparently.)
So it starts.
Whenever I begin, I wince, taking just a little snip off here and there, afraid to induce irrevocable damage. But then, as time progresses and some amount of courage sets in, I start wacking away, with little regard to any plant's feelings. "I am woman" and I can't stop myself. I am on a mission to restore life, to bring back form and airiness, to force my plants to follow every gardening principle known to all farmers everywhere...TO GROW THE BIGGEST AND BEST BERRIES EVER PRODUCED!
I take it too far.
(Take a look at my camellias and you'll understand.)
Let's hope the "makeover" I just gave my blackberry bushes tonight is more forgiving and not a cruel joke created by my rabid pruning shears. (It will be our little secret if blackberries are conspicuously absent from my market this year, ok?)
