A quick pruning

Too little time and too many projects in the garden this weekend left me working rather than documenting, so  -- and what I was doing was rather boring stuff anyway: potting up some plants, tucking another plant into an existing bed, weeding.

Oh, and pruning -- both underground of bamboo rhizomes and above ground of shrubs. Here's a quick look at the ninebark.

***

You may not be able to notice it in the photo above, but the outer edges of this beautiful shrub are too full and heavy, dragging all of the branches down and opening up the center of the plant. This is a pretty good strategy if you're a shrub and want to get big, as the thick outer growth shades out competition, leaving prime growing space in the middle of the plant open for the new branches.

Unfortunately, this plant is much larger than I originally expected, and there's really no room for it to get any wider -- so I need to prune lots of the outer branches off.

I did my best to get at some of the interior branches, but some of them are so large and woody it's going to take some work to thin this thing out. Not sure when I'll tackle that, as my current strategy of lightening the load seems to be working:

(Compare to the first photo.) Many of the branches are being held a bit higher now, and that there's a lot more room around the plant. Notice the path at the left side especially: almost blocked in the first photo, but easy access now.

I did take quite a bit off...

...but stopped before I felt like I was finished.

Stopping will give the plant a few days to adjust -- many of the leaves are being held at the "wrong" angle now with the removal of the extra weight, and it just doesn't look "right".  I also want to take a few days to look at and live with the plant some more. I may need to take additional branches off, but I'd rather not do it all in one shot and risk removing too much.

I don't claim to be a pruning expert, but this method seems to be working for this specific plant -- at least for now.

.