How NOT to Prune a Smoke Tree
by
Rather Square
(IC: blogger)
Not all home improvement projects are successful… especially in the landscaping department! Today we’re sharing how we failed a pruning project in our backyard, along with our planned next steps to try and fix it.
Last winter, we tried pruning our smoke tree so that it would grow back a little smaller and tidier this summer. We trimmed the branches at their ends, down to the height we wanted the tree to be. But we didn’t realize that pruning the tree this way would actually cause its growth to quickly surpass the smaller size we were going for. And now we’ve got a smoky monster on our hands.
Instead of a cute and tidily-pruned smoke tree in our backyard, it’s now growing up as high as our second-story windows. And it’s actually engulfing other plants in that corner of the garden. The difference in last summer’s tree growth and this summer’s is crazy – check out this side-by-side comparison.
As you can see, our pruning efforts had the opposite effect that we’d planned. Instead of keeping the smoke tree nicely shaped and at a reasonable size, we seem to have created an even more out-of-control growth situation. The branches and leaves completely block our dining nook window, keeping us from gazing out at the backyard garden during meals. Not cool.
After we noticed the smoke tree’s unusual (and unexpected) growth earlier this summer, we did some more research to see what might have gone wrong. Basically we learned that a smoke tree should be pruned in winter or early spring by trimming at the branching-off point, to keep the tree from over-sprouting. So in order to make sure this overgrowth doesn’t happen again, we’re planning to reprune Old Smoky – the correct way – this winter or next spring. We can’t cut it any further this summer, or it will just rebound and continue to get even bigger.
Check out our blog post below for more info!
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Published August 12th, 2014 11:22 AM
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Douglas Hunt on Aug 13, 2014Fortunately plants are frequently forgiving of our failings, and look at that lovely nest you've got.
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