Good and bad pruning
July 26, 2009
The superbly scented Trachelospermum jasminoides is sometimes known in the USA as Star Jasmine or, because it's widely planted in the South, Confederate Jasmine. It's also known as Traders Compass - oddly, since iot has five petals. Anyway... A few years ago this was a vine you rarely saw in Britain, and when you did it was usually planted on a south facing wall where it benefited from the choice position or grown in a conservatory.
But with the increase in patio gardening providing more situations which are warm and sheltered, and with the climate changing, it seems to be turning up all over the place. But this self-clinging evergreen vine needs the right pruning to ensure it doesn’t get out of hand, yet flowers prolifically.
Just opposite my daughter’s house in a south London suburb, is a lovely specimen. It’s trained on a pillar at the front gate and so that everyone who walks down the street or calls at the house can appreciate the colour and the fragrance. So they must be pruning it right.
Actually, I saw the owner pruning it once. It was a couple of years ago, in spring, and they were simply going over it briskly with the hedging shears. In much warmer climates, like Florida where it’s even used as ground cover, it’s pruned after flowering in May or June.
As it happens, a couple of houses along the street is an example of really bad pruning – or rather the bad result of a complete lack of pruning. This lavender hasn’t been pruned for years so it looks terrible. And now it’s too late. The thing is: lavender usually refuses to grow if you get out the saw or the long-handled pruners and cut into old thick wood. Do that with this hedge and it will probably die.
Better to tear it all out, improve the soil and put in some new plants – which should be pruned after every flush of flowers, snipping back to just above the old wood.