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pruning
above: sometimes you really don’t want to go near a hedge clipper
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nature vs.
butcher
Soft edge pruning is all about natural lines. While it
might sound strange, controlled wildness is the effect I'm going after,
natural without looking neglected, and at the same time contained without
looking artificial.
No hedge trimmers. Hand pruning takes time, but that is exactly what I
want to do when cutting your plants. The hedge trimmer is the pruning equivalent
of fast food: quick, easy, and not very healthy. The result is a flat bushy
fringe, barely hiding leggy dead space.
No weed whackers or leaf blowers means less air and noise pollution.
Weeds get pulled out, leaves get raked and put in your compost site. If you
don't have a compost site, I can set up a simple one for you or help you
choose a ready made container.
Hand pruning is not an instant fix, but it is a vast improvement over
mechanical trimming. I begin by clearing out the dead material left behind by
previous clipping jobs, this opens up the plants, letting in sunlight and
providing air circulation. This allows me to begin to filling in gaps by
retraining plants and encouraging new growth.
Soft edge versus hard edge is like the hair cut equivalent of
feathering vs. buzz cuts, the timber equivalent of selective harvesting vs.
clear cut, bonsai vs. topiary- if you understand that, you understand soft
edge and hard edge. Of course, keeping gardens looking 'natural' involves
some human intervention, but the key is keeping the effort as invisible as
possible and letting nature shine.
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