Seasonal Maintenance for Fence Gardens
When growing a fence garden, there are plenty of seasonal tasks that you’ll need to attend to in order to keep your plants in their best condition. In this chapter, we’ll reveal a few of the most crucial of these tasks, some of which will boost your plant’s health while others will improve their appearance.
Deadheading Flowering Fence Plants
If you grow flowering plants near your fence, it’s wise to deadhead these plants most years. Deadheading is a type of pruning in which you remove any spent blooms that remain on the plant. The main advantage to deadheading is that it often encourages your plants to bloom more vigorously in the future.
Cutting Back Plants Seasonally
Our next seasonal maintenance task for fence gardens is one that will ensure that your plants do not grow beyond your control. Whether you grow fast-growing vines, large shrubs, or any other significant plant, you’ll likely need to cut them back to a manageable size each year to ensure they do not overcrowd your fence or overtake nearby plants.
Pruning for Size and Shape
Pruning is not only a functional task that encourages your plant to grow more healthily. It is also a way to ensure your garden achieves your personal aesthetic goals. When pruning, you can focus on making cuts that emphasize the plant’s natural form. Alternatively, you can prune some plants into specific shapes, an approach that is especially common for evergreen shrubs.
Rejuvenation Pruning
Rejuvenation pruning is a more extreme form of pruning that you should use when your plants have become overgrown or taken on an unshapely form. To perform this kind of pruning, you’ll need to cut your plant nearly all the way back to the ground, leaving stems that are just a few inches long. After you make these cuts, the plant will begin growing again, allowing you to control its shape once more.
