Welcome everybody to Midday Magazine for this Thursday, February 27th, 2025.
Have your host James here or join right now by our great friend Janelle Weir,
Horticultural Educator with UW-Madison Extension. Janelle I've been so
excited all week for this interview but as excited as I am my father is much
more excited. He just I joke all the time and I mention this in ingest a little
bit but I really do learn whenever you join us. My father though he writes stuff
down like he's got notes from you from like years ago especially when it comes
to working out in the yard and some of that. You really opened them up to a lot
of those things. Nomo May some of these things like he wouldn't hear me out
but he listened to you. So let's educate, let's have some fun and get into a
great one today pruning woody ornaments. This is an interesting topic. Yeah yeah so
you know a lot of people get nervous when they have are thinking about pruning
any sort of woody plant so I'm talking your your trees and your shrubs right
people get nervous and you know I got to say I'm right there with them so I
was really in another lifetime I was a greenhouse manager at a local garden
center and I that's really I mean I had some some science background from
college but that's where I really cut my teeth and learning about annuals
perennials vegetables you know all sorts of plants but an area where I didn't
have responsibility or maybe accountability was the having a knowledge base in
the woody's so for a long time I've kind of shied on you know learning about
them and then also taking what I've learned and experimenting in my own yard so
yeah so I totally appreciate people's reservations when it comes to pruning and
like just not really sure you know what you need you know what what you should be
doing right but the information really isn't that difficult to understand and I
think once you really start to once you start to just get it out there with the
pruners when you know when to prune when you know the appropriate techniques it
becomes a whole lot less scary and that seems like a great place to start to
now so why prune why why would you do something like this yeah yeah so yeah
there's a handful of really good reasons so number one you know if we've got a
really thick I'm thinking in particular shrubs right but it's gonna be true for
trees too but when we've got your shrubs picture like a lilac right you know if
it gets really thick and overgrown it's going to be more susceptible to your
septoria disease or powdery mildew and this isn't true just for lilacs it's
gonna be true for you know many of your woody ornamentals you want a prune
because you're going to reduce insect and disease pressures another reason why
you'd want a prune is just simply to maintain the shape of the plant perhaps
it's growing a little bit larger than what you want it to be right so a lot of
times there's some different types of pruning techniques that can help
maintain the size as well as the shape of the plant another reason that
comes to mind is you know and here I'm thinking about that overgrown lilac again
right we're gonna use that as an example but this could apply to all sorts of
other plants you know a lot of times you want to prune to either maybe it's
not flowering as nice as it used to and doing a nice pruning is going to
invigorate either your flowers or fruits in turn right also a lot of times
we're growing plants by pruning you're going to increase the vigor of the
plant so I'm kind of thinking in particular dogwoods right red with dog red
twig dogwoods and as those canes get older they don't they're not that
beautiful red color anymore they tend to kind of turn gray right but if you
want that beautiful winter interest of the red red color on that twigs of
those twigs you're gonna want to prune out those older canes every few years
so yeah a lot of really good reasons why we want to prune oh one other one
comes to mind too it's just simply easier to prune in the winter when you don't
have the leaves covering up it's easier to see the structure yeah yeah so
hmm a lot of good reasons yeah and as far as now being a good time to do this
you touched on that right there yeah that that's a good part of this right
and yep yep the other reason is everything's dormant right now right so our
trees and our shrubs are dormant but guess who else is dormant the insects and
the diseases right so when we're pruning we're literally cutting a wound into
the plant right if everything's dormant then there's less of a risk of the
plant becoming infected right away as everything wakes up in the spring and the
plant comes out of its dormancy it's gonna be able to seal up that wound
pretty quickly very interesting oh cool I see that again learning I'm learning
right here that's awesome I didn't know to say that is as far as things not to
prune are there certain things that we we should stay away from oak and
elm and things like that so right now is really the very very very very very
very best time I mentioned you know what diseases and insects you know dormant
pruning is really preferred you know for all of your body ornamentals it
becomes incredibly serious when we're talking about elms or oaks we really want
to prune before the temperatures reach 50 degrees the reason why is oaks are
susceptible to oak wilt the alms that we have left those are susceptible to
Dutch alms disease and so we really and one of the biggest vectors or ways of
transmission for these trees to get those diseases is these sneaky little
beetles right and those beetles are only active when the temperatures are above
50 degrees so and there have been studies done where on oaks in particular
they wanted to see you know how quickly the beetles would become active and in
fact in oak if they you know if one you know was injured inside the forest and
so they cut and they did multiples of these but they cut an oak and what they
found is it only took the beetles 10 minutes to find the wound on the oak yeah
so if they're around they're gonna find it and they're gonna find it pretty
done quickly so the very best time if you have any sort of pruning that you
need to do to oaks or our alms go ahead and get that done you know really I
like to shoot for his same Patrick's day that's a great note and I think helps a
lot of people with this when you give it date like that and something to kind of
keep in mind when it's getting closer to that what was it about St. Patrick's oh
yeah that you know that that's a good note and you know that I mean I'm you know
mentioning St. Pat's just because it's March 17th and St. Pat's is an easy day
to remember but I mean it's not a hard and fast you have to get out there by
you know March 17th it's just you know keep in mind with those temperatures hey if
you got an anniversary around that time might be a good way to remember the anniversary
and this you mentioned lilacs before let's get a little bit into spring
flowering and touch on that yeah so um the general rule of thumb when it comes to
pruning plants is going to be pruning them when they're dormant but if you've
got something that flowers pretty early in the season so that's gonna be your
forcithias those are those shrubs that become that beautiful they're like the
very first things to bloom in the spring they're beautiful yellow shrubs so
forcithias lilacs mock oranges viburnums choke cherries all of those um it's
actually probably a pretty good idea if you don't want to miss out on the
flowers to go ahead and wait until they're done blooming and then prune them
immediately after so that's going to be sometime in June right what we don't
want to do is wait until July to prune because they bloom on that wood that's
going to grow from say mid-June throughout the rest of the growing season
that's when it where it's gonna set its buds so you want to prune just it's
quickly as you can after they're done flowering um when it comes to summer
flowering um shrubs those you want to go ahead and prune now
they aren't going to they are going to set the buds in the spring and then the
flowering happens later on in the season so even if you prune right now you're
not um you're not uh pruning away this year's flowers okay so if you're curious
what are those types of plants that's going to be most of your hydrangeas your roses
Japanese spiria um your rose of sharens uh smoke bushes and potentilus
mm-hmm and as far as red twig dogwoods rub willows uh some of that
yeah so these these are the ones I mentioned before that you know maybe it's not
so much for the flowering that we're uh pruning them but we want to prune them to
maintain that nice vigor to them right and so those you can prune all of them
by reducing the entire shrub you're going to take out 30% of it and you're
going to remove the canes all the way down to the ground level shoot for
somewhere between four and 10 inches above the soil right so you're taking the entire cane out
only a third of them though and start with the very oldest ones first so at the beginning of our
conversation I mentioned you know I've been slowly starting to get a little bit more bold in my
landscape um I've got a shrub um and my yard and you know it's kind of I'm just going to go on a
tangent for a second um so my house was built in 1931 I live in um pretty close to campus in
Stevens Point and um I found out that my house and my neighbor's house was built by two sisters
oh and I think I've mentioned this in the past in this this shrub that I or this hedge that I've
got I've got a hedge that separates the two of us yeah and I'm not sure who planted it you know
because the house had besides the two besides the the the original owner it's had multiple on it
sure since before we bought it um but I have always wondered who planted that hedge because it has
got a good two-inch thorns on it yeah so I wonder you know like how is that relationship between
the sisters yes anybody with a sibling immediately that's so funny um some beautiful houses over
there too by the way so the history of that and I hadn't thought much about like I've looked at
those houses as long as I've lived over here I but um the obviously some of the plant life over
there too would have some age to it oh absolutely beautiful history too yeah that's really cool huh
so I have been um you know that that hedge has been getting kind of you know um
it clearly needed some rejuvenation and so for the past two years this year's year number
three in fact I've been thinking the the temperatures just about right for me to go ahead and
do my yearly pruning what I've been doing with this hedge is I've been taking out one third of the
canes one third of the oldest canes every year and what that has done it is allowed new growth to
generate from below as I'm taking out those canes those older canes it's eliminating all of the
growth at the top of the hedge and now I've got better light penetration all the way down in the
center of those of that hedge so I'm getting all of this new growth coming up now don't get me wrong
it's a little bit of of a reset right I mean my shrubs used to be about a darn near or about
as tall as me which might sound kind of tall but the listening audience doesn't know how short I am
all of that said as I've been doing this over the past few years I have taken out
much of the height you know and and I will eventually get that height back as I let that
undergross slowly you know build it's way up so you know the the bad side of this you know
doing this process is I've taken out a bit of the height luckily I've got a good relationship
with the person that lives in that house now so we don't need to have the hedge I'm not so you
know I'm not really sold on the thorns but it's been there for a while so we're gonna let it stay
that's that's cool that's very cool and a great story thank you for sharing that you know
so all of that to say is yep anytime that you're dealing with some of those you like the the
dogwood or the your shrub willows you're gonna want to take them out only a third at the time and
that kind of goes back to there's a general rule when we're talking about plants that you want to
take off about anytime you're pruning you want to take off about a third of the plant at a time
that's even true for mowing your grass when you're mowing your grass you only want to take off
one third of the blade right so this rule of one-thirds it's gonna be true you're gonna see that come
up a lot when you're dealing with plants helps for people I think to give that yeah and then I
mentioned getting rid of those older stems partly for invigorating but also those are the ones
that are gonna be the most susceptible to diseases what I have found in my little adventures the
past couple of years in my hedge is some of the canes that I'm removing I'm realizing oh it's a
good thing that I'm doing that because I'm seeing that there is some disease in the center of the
stems hmm how about fruit trees let's move on to those yeah so for fruit trees you just want to
make sure that you're removing any dead disease or broken branches and you can do that year round okay
when it comes to pruning for shape we want to make sure or pruning for for the health of the tree
you really want to make sure that you're removing this time of year you want to make sure that you
removing any water sprouts and those water sprouts are gonna be those really vigorous upright
shoots they're the ones that go just straight vertical all of those are competing with the trunk
or the main branches for light so go ahead and get rid of them they're not really doing any
I mean they're doing some photosynthesis but they're they're not good for the health of the tree
same idea get rid of the suckers at the base of the tree and then take a step back
this is why now's a great time too is because you don't have any leaves blocking your view
take a look at it and see do you see any branches that are criss-crossed or any branches that
are starting to grow towards the trunk of the tree if you have any of those branches go ahead and
get them pruned out too and as far as bleaters and those go when I get into that too with you yeah
so some trees just bleed right um when you especially this time of year the sap is flowing
freely if you do prune say a maple box elder butternut a birch walnut or any of their relatives
if you prune them what you may find is all of a sudden it's gonna start flowing the sap don't worry
it's unsightly but it's not unhealthy it's not gonna harm the tree um if you can't stand the
sight of all of that sap flowing though no worries you can go ahead and wait until after the
leaves have fully expanded um so they've broken broken dormancy leaves have fully expanded but
it's still really really early in the season you can wait until then to go ahead and prune and
maples box elder uh similar thing as far as this one yep yep all of their relatives you're
gonna they're all gonna be bleaters just if you see it don't don't freak out and you know you've
done a great job at this throughout the whole conversation but just kind of zoning in on tips
for pruning and touching on that a little bit too you know it's really important to disinfect those
pruning tools and you want to do it with you know either a 70% rubbing alcohol or a disinfectant
solution like lice all make sure that you're cleaning those tools in between each um cut um so don't
you know prune the entire lilac and then clean your pruning in between cuts because if you do
have a disease and you go and you cut you're just spreading that disease amongst your entire plant
make sure all of those to pruning tools are clean and sharp and you know there's a kind of a
old wisdom out there um that people like to use pruning tar as a pruning paints they're not
necessary and they could actually harm your tree the only time that we recommend using pruning
paints or um pruning paints or pruning tires is if let's say we've got a really bad storm that
comes in the middle of summer and your oak um has some broken branches in that case go ahead
clean up that cut and then we could prune that or you paint that over that's really the only case
that we recommend that interesting thank you do you know we had some other things that we wanted
to touch on real quick before we let you go as well yeah I've got some really cool upcoming
programs I'm super excited we've got a workshop specifically for mung growers and that's
going to be April 26 and 2025 that's on a Saturday it's from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. we have a full day
planned for everyone um the location's going to be at the health department that's in the river
rock building um that's on west Jackson street one one one west Jackson street on the third floor
here in Wisconsin Rapids now the reasons why I'm so excited about this the USDA and FSA is
going to be coming and talking about resources including grant opportunities for small farmers
um that mung growers you know absolutely can and should be taking advantage of we're going to
have the NRSC come and share some of their resources I'm going to be talking about pest management
and also sharing some other extension resources and then um my uh colleague from extension
Gowneau Tau will be sharing a little bit about farm leases you know intro to farm leases and then
as well as record keeping because that record keeping is so essential in the being eligible for
the grants right so it's really an exciting full day I'm really excited about this that's
great opportunity that's going to be April 26 you can call down to the extension office here in
uh wood county if you've got any further questions and want to wrap up with a really fun one as well
ask your gardener questions live this is a really cool idea do you know this is so cool so this
is kind of if you're familiar with um uh mprs or wprs garden talk with Larry Mealer it's kind
of the same idea so we've got some experts um it's like straight up experts from UW Madison
and this is your opportunity to join them live in a webinar and ask your you know you get to
play stump the chump ask them you're really really tricky questions that's a great opportunity um
you uh when you join us and and certainly other members from extension uh we get to cover so much
but we know that people out there may have these great area questions that you just don't have an
opportunity or hear the information here is a a opportunity where you're just there's no middleman
there's nobody in between it's not an AI you're asking you're talking straight to a live person
yes yes so you know great like you got those say hey how i'm thinking about uh yeah doing this
it's a great opportunity to be able to do that a really good idea i'm looking forward to that one
and that is again coming up on March 17th and then real quickly as we're wrapping up growing healthy
plants a basic uh basics in plant disease management is also coming up in March this is another
incredible opportunity uh free opportunity all of these events are free um the free opportunity
this one's going to be March 26 630 to 830 uh dr. Brian Huddleston will be sharing um the basics
of plant disease management and he is really and truly the plant disease guru for the state of
Wisconsin so if you are really passionate about plants and you're confused about plant diseases
this is all an incredible opportunity to learn from one of the premier people in plant diseases
in our state we learn every time you're with us Janelle uh another one of those check mark you know
i learned today uh and i love it and i appreciate it so very much and people have follow up questions
would like to know more how can they reach you well easiest way to get ahold of me is just
directly through email so it's my first name dot last name that's j-a-n-e-l-l dot w-e-h-r at
whisk w-i-s-c dot edu or you can give me a call over at the extension office phone number there is
seven one five four two one eight four four zero nice and um just leave a message
tell them that you got to you got a plant question and they'll put you in touch with me uh
appreciate your Janelle say hi to the staff over there for us uh you have a great one we'll see
you soon thank you we'll have more midday magazine for you on the way here at wfhr
