You Bet Your Garden

November 26, 2011 — The holidays are coming! Mike McGrath discusses how to harvest some of your landscape for holiday greenery. Plus, Mike speaks with Pat Stone, editor of Greenprints, “The Weeder’s Digest,” recent winner of a major award from the Garden Writers Association of America; the human side of gardening; and your fabulous phone calls.

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Every Fall, I yell at you not to prune, because pruning stimulates growth, and you don’t want to do that when your plants are trying to go dormant. But once they ARE dormant, you can prune away! Winter is the perfect time, for instance, to open up the canopy of big trees to let in more light and to prune fruit trees for shape and air circulation. It’s also the perfect time to harvest wayward branches of evergreens and hollies for holiday decorations. I do this every December, trimming some of the lowest branches on my biggest evergreens. And this year I have a two-year old blue holly that I can take a few branches from. And hey—a couple of my old rosemary ‘trees’ are big enough to harvest a nice amount of greens from! Learn more »