Have any bushes you've made a mess of when you've tried to prune them? I sure do. I have two hollies in my back yard that instead of growing up, are growing OUT. Not particularly attractive. I got some advice from the pruning workshop I attended at the beginning of the season. Seems I most likely trimmed the leader, the tallest stem, going straight up, which caused it stop growing upward. The advice from Volante Farms was to make a new leader by pulling up a likely branch and tying it to a stake until it naturally will grow in the right direction.
I tried it. Boy, was it tough to wrestle that branch in a somewhat vertical direction--a 2 person project. I think it may actually work for one holly. The other one... Well, I'll give it a year, but it just may not be long for that garden.
I also did a drastic trim on a boxwood that took heavy damage this past winter. This boxwood has been here much longer than we have (and that's 18 years.) and was standing chest high. 2/3 of it was brown from winter kill, so I went in and cut out the dead wood. leaving a somewhat lopsided bush. I'm hoping it will fill in enough this season so it won't look so sad. Boxwoods are slow growers, though.
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