Landscaping at our house---

A new gardening year begins and every spring I wonder, is ours the only family where the male and the female views of neatness vary 180 dgrees? To the men in my family, any home is neatest and attractive when practically empty. Shelves cleared, desk tops barren, chairs pushed back to the table and all the transplants are planted. Not to the females in my family. To us, neatness is boring.

The same sex-linked reactions occures with our outdoor gardenings. Acres of empty lawn, edged by a low carefully cropped shrubs are the male preference. The eager-beaver cleaning urge usually strikes on the first warm spring day, when the new plant growth begins. My husband will look out at the struffy wild raspberries, volunteer maples and skinny service berry trees. "Next thing you know, we won't be able to see the view at all." he'll mutter as he brabs the saw and loppers. "Please, don't cut down all the wild plants," I'll shout. "They'll be beautiful in a few weeks!"

So this year we have reached an agreement between overbarren and overbedecked, but we've worked out alot of compromises. For one thing, we have learned how to control trees and shrubs better. Over the years I have discovered the difference between pruning and shearing. Shrubs and tree that are sheared are cut to some arbitrary form determined in advance by the gardener. The shrubs that must stay low, like those under windows, I prune back to main stems to encourage more side branching. I prune individual branches back to a side branch or bud lower down on the branch. That way maintaing neatness without creating an artificial appearance.

As for when to prune shrubs, there is my rule. Any plant that blooms before July 4th prune immediately after it blooms and you have only two weeks to do so or you risk the chance of cutting off the flower buds for next year. If the plant blooms after July 4th then you prune it in March. Most small needle evergreens like yews are prunned in the dormant season, which is between Thanksgiving and Easter.

So our compromise is working at least outdoors. No spots are barren, but the place doesn't look like the Sleeping Beauty's protective forest, either.