No flowers today?
Shrub trimming is one of the most common practices in the landscaping field across the Phoenix metropolitan area. Unfortunately, this simple practice can be unjustifiably brutal. The lack of horticultural knowledge creates round balls, square and rectangular shrubs. For many, the appeal of round or square plants falls into the artistic category. But, the end result of this practice is always the same; a plant with an enormous amount of dead branches and an unhealthy look. The hardest part for a plant is that when it is about to bloom, after spending a great deal of energy getting ready for its big debut, it gets trimmed by a machine that doesn’t know what it’s doing!
Hedge trimming machines are very practical and they can enhance specific type of exotic plants, but they mostly reduce the amount of time and work. However, the constant use of hedge trimmers on shrubs of any kind can be detrimental and dangerous to a normal plant. Hedge trimmers can pick up fungus and bacteria diseases from any other sick plant out there that is dying, and transmit it to a healthy plant in your landscape. Desert plants are not meant to be trimmed as a hedge since they are morphological (shaped) adapted to the desert. They have smaller leaves to avoid sun exposure and because of that they can preserve more water during the hot months. When desert plants get trimmed, they have a tendency to react and produce more foliage this in fact, creates more tender new growth that dies with the harsh sun and the exposed stems get sun burn. What to do? The answer is simple. Stop trimming your shrubs with a headge trimmer machine and allow them to express themselves so they will produce an abundant amount of flowers for you. It is a fact that shrubs like Texas sage, Australian cassia, desert ruellias and many others are beautiful on their own but, these desert plants won’t tolerate excessive trimming for very long. Trim them lightly by hand once a year if necessary and let them perform.