Читать книгу Gardening Basics For Dummies - The Editors of the National Gardening Association, Steven A. Frowine - Страница 41

A yard or garden space with a lot of shade is often lamented as forcing too many limitations on gardeners. Never fear! This problem is often much easier to remedy than you may think, usually just by pruning some trees and bushes:

1 Go out with clippers and/or a small pruning saw to remove all nonnegotiable branches and twigs — anything obviously dead or diseased, particularly the lower branches of thick trees.

2 Go on to thinning — taking out growth that’s rubbing against other branches or crowding the interior of a plant.

3 For anything you can’t handle, call in a certified arborist or a tree company. If you aren’t sure you can do it yourself, don’t do it! Tree work can be very dangerous. You need the services of a tree company if you decide to take out an entire tree or large limbs. Check with local authorities; in some areas you need permission to cut down trees. In the end? More sun, more light, and more air — a whole new yard!)If a tree is in your neighbor’s yard but the unwanted branches come over into yours, talk to them about removing the branches or even the whole tree. When a shade tree affects your yard and your neighbor’s, work out splitting the arborist bill to remove or prune — it’s only fair! If you decide to use a certified arborist, get references. Make sure the arborist is insured and bonded.

If a more permanent structure, such as a house or fence, causes your shade problem, you may still have more planting options available than you think. Review the chapters in Parts 2, 3, and 4 for a variety of ideas on how to grow in the shade.

Regardless of whether bushes and shrubs are a shade problem, you should prune them to remove some or all the offending thicket to keep your garden (and yard in general) looking good. Try an early-spring pruning foray. This is also the time to do drastic chopping back, say, if you want to reduce a hedge’s height; cut no more than one-third at a time — you can prune again next season. Spring pruning is preferred because plants are surging into new growth, and they’ll be better able to recover from cutting back. Fall pruning can be a mistake, because it may inspire fresh new growth that then gets damaged by cold weather/frost.

For flowering shrubs and trees, always prune them right after they flower before they develop flower buds for the following season. Otherwise you’ll be removing next year’s flowers.