Gardening

The gigantic Spirea

It has been made clear to me that my brother and I have very different views of what looks good in a garden.  I love the natural look.  I don't want to see plants shaped into boring lumps.  My brother Jon on the other hand does not like to see plants flopping all over.  Recently he decided the garlic chives along my parents front walk were becoming a little to free with their leaves.   He thought they needed some shaping and firming to keep them from touching the lovely natural design of the cement sidewalk.  So he gave them a crew cut.  There are 8 garlic chive plants along the sidewalk.  View the results:

Garlic Chives with a haircut

I have to admit I was speechless.  A crew cut for chives!  He didn't even save any for cooking.  (I am not sure he knows they are food.)   He did explain to me that he would stop clipping them as soon as they started to send up flower stalks.  Evidently he is OK with flowering plants getting in the way of wandering feet.

He has been trying to trim (his version) the beautiful Spirea which sits at the corner of the house for years.  (See first picture)   He had been told not to upon pain of death.  Up until this year he kept away from it.  Then, this year, Mother Nature conspired with him and sent many feet of snow.  That snow had to go somewhere.  We couldn't have it in the driveway or the sidewalk now could we?  And there was the Spirea sitting there right in the way.

Lots of snow this year....Note the Spirea under the tallest pile.

When the snow was piled upon the Spirea it pushed all the stems out into the driveway.  Now I admit we couldn't have those branches scratching up the side of the car.   Of course not.  Jon got to trim them down.   What a good job he did too.  See the little stems sticking out of the snow.

Spirea, trimmed for the driveway.

Now I have to say he doesn't always just hack off the plants.   Sometimes he ties them up and then hacks them off.   

Daylillies

Sometimes he merely ropes them up.  

Solomon's Seal

I am not even going to go into the affair of the lilac bush.  At least it is still alive.  I still get upset about that and it was years ago.  I need to let that go.  It wasn't Jon's fault anyway.  That was my father.  He told the man who mows the lawn to 'trim' it.  When Dad used to 'trim' them himself they never grew back.  We lost a few ornamental shrubs that way.

Hopefully the Chives will be able to store enough energy from their decimated leaves to allow them to bloom this year.  I have high hopes, because the plants usually respond to stress by working extra hard to reproduce.  It isn't as if we were low on Garlic Chives. They have self seeded all over.

Love,
Nancy