WINTER PRUNING

Severe case of cabin fever during the coldest winter in 50 years? Longing for the halcyon days of an Atlanta summer, when you whiled away the time carefully detailing your garden? Well, you still may have to bundle up. But unknown to many, the best days to get a jump on pruning chores around the yard are right now.

JUNIPERS

Parsons and Pfitzer Junipers should never be "meatballed", but once a year they do need a few selected cuts. Remove arm-like branches that rise above the branches' average height.

Groundcover Junipers such as Blue Pacific and Sargent may be encroaching upon walks, driveways, and curbs. They need to be hand-pruned to reign them in to desired boundaries. Do not "under cut" a bed of Junipers. The dark part underneath will never re-grow.

CRAPE MYRTLES

A 1997 article in Southern Living bemoaned the common practice of butchering Crape Myrtles. The title was "Crape Murder." Horticulturally correct pruning of Crape Myrtles involves a four-step process:

A. Round off the tops of each tree in an umbrella shape. Try to remove no more than 12 inches of height, while still matching the trees' heights within the group. Sometimes, more height will need to be removed to keep Crapes "in scale" with nearby structures or plants.

B. Remove conflicting branches. These are branches that rub together, or two branches that seem to take up the same space.

C. Remove suckers (small twigs growing out of the root ball), watersprouts (succulent sprouts that emerge from the large trunks) and ladder branching (twigs that grow out of larger branches, at a distinct right angle). Do not remove any small twigs which grow out at a normal V-shape angle.

D. Strip off any seedheads that remain after steps A-C.

LIRIOPE

All Liriope (Monkey Grass) should be cut back during the winter. Check for and mark any irrigation heads, old tree stumps and hidden metal stakes, then mow the bed using an ordinary push mower with a bag attachment. After Liriope cutback, treat the bed with a pre-emergent herbicide such as Surflan so that weeds do not take up in your Liriope. (Note: A similar, shorter groundcover known as Mondo Grass should not be cut back at all.)

HOLLIES

Late Winter/Early Spring is a perfect time to prune any Holly that is unshapely or outgrowing its space.

Small-leafed Hollies (Dwarf Yaupons, Heller, Repandens, Greenlustre, etc., often mistakenly called Boxwoods) can be reduced in height as desired to bring them back into scale with your house and with nearby plants.

Dwarf Burford Hollies, Dwarf Chinese Hollies, Needlepoint Hollies and Carissa Hollies do well with an annual haircut at this time of the year. Take this opportunity to reduce their heights and shape them into a mass.

Conical Hollies (Foster, Savannah, Nellie Stevens and Emily Bruner) should be reshaped during the winter into the symmetrical cones in which they look best. Again, a few bare branches now to reestablish strict symmetry will not hurt these Hollies at all.

TREEFORM EVERGREENS

Treeform Evergreens include Burford Hollies, Wax Myrtles and Yaupons. These should be hand-pruned only, not power-sheared. Select branches well above the average height and deep prune these branches all the way down to the next scaffold branch. Overall shapes of these evergreens should be mushroom-like.

Some people garden hard and some people garden smart. Winter pruning will get you out in the yard now that football season is over. And once baseball season starts, you'll find garden chores just a little less arduous.