Hello, and welcome to the Crown Nursery blog.
On Wednesday 18th February, 16 enthusiastic gardeners joined us for a morning workshop on winter pruning.
The very word pruning sends a shiver down some people's spine - most of us know that we ought to do something - particularly with our fruit trees, but we study books with arrows saying cut here and cut there - and end up just getting even more confused!
Well, hopefully, after a couple of hours - those same 16 can now boast that they know all about it.
As usual, the group split into two - half doing shrub renovation pruning with Graeme, and the other half looking at fruit tree pruning with me.
We will look at the shrub pruning side at a later date - but those in my group certainly had a fun time. We went straight up into the heritage orchard - and quickly raced through some of the theory of pruning. Different types of bud and tree shape followed - then into the pruning demo.
After I had done two trees - it was then a group 'You the Jury' session - with one nominaned individual doing the cuts - and the others watching, and occasionally disagreeing!
The beauty of these courses is how the course members grow in confidence. At first, they are very unsure what to cut - fearing they will ruin the tree for ever. But at the end - it is wonderful to see them disagreeing and arguing for certain pieces of wood to be cut off or left - as if they had been pruning fruit trees for years!!
Crown Nursery courses are a huge amount of fun - very informal, and a great way to meet your fellow gardeners.
We are working on a new group of courses for the spring, summer and autumn - so check out the website for details.
Until next time,
Richard
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