Arizona Palm

Many Different types of palms grow in Arizona

Pruning Shear

September 18th, 2007

Rick

Pruning Shear Reviews

Felco Classic Manual Hand Pruner F-2

$36.99

Original Felco design; unchanged for over sixty years. Solid-forged metal alloy handles are complemented by a Swiss precision made hardened Cutting Blade (replaceable) and an anvil blade with a sap groove. A hardened bolt and nut assure exact adjustment of both the cutting and anvil blades. A rubber cushion and shock absorber provide smooth working and soft closing of this pruner. Length 8.5″….

Felco F-6 Classic Pruner For Smaller Hands

$37.79

Designed for those with smaller hands who may prefer a smaller, lighter pruner. It is comfortable to use yet every bit as sturdy and powerful as the other Felco models. Ideal for Small Pruning work such as grape vines, shrubs and young trees. It is also the choice of many florists. The anvil blade is screw mounted. The shorter blades facilitate closer cutting to the stem of the plant. Length 7.25″…

Fiskars 9109 Traditional Bypass Pruning Shears

$8.99

Loppers Shears Pruners – Garden Tools Type: Hand Pruner Blade Length: 5/8 Handle Type: Dual Layer Comfort Grips…

Demeter Fragrance Library – Plants & Trees – Home Atmosphere Room Spray Collection

Demeter captures the true essence of each scent. Whether it be Gin & Tonic, Leather or Angel Food, Demeter’s technologically advanced fragrances allow you to scent the skin, as well as your personal space with scents that harken back to childhood memories…

Extendable Lopping Shears

$25.95

HANDLE EXTENDS FROM 19.5″ TO 32.5″

MADE IN TAIWAN…

Fiskars Edge with Ease Grass Cutting Shears – Head rotates 180 degrees for best cutting angle – Fully sharpened 5 inch Steel Blades – Great for gardening

$21.85

Fiskars Edge with Ease Grass Cutting Shears – Head rotates 180 degrees for best cutting angle – Fully sharpened 5 Inch Steel blades – Great for gardening…

My Hand Pruners (My First Garden Tools)

$4.95

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ORIGINAL PATENT APPLICATION NUMBER 14,063 FOR IMPROVEMENTS IN SECATEURS OR PRUNING SHEARS (LONDON).

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Scissors: Clauss Cutlery Company, Pruning Shears, Loppers, Pinking Shears, Trauma Shears, Metzenbaum Scissors

$14.13

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher’s book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Scissors are hand-operated cutting instruments. They consist of a pair of metal blades, or tangs, connected in such a way that the sharpened edges slide against each other. Scissors are used for cutting various th…

Leatherman 830555 Hybrid Gardening Multitool with Nylon Sheath

$73.76

Pruners that Work as Hard as You Do: The Hybrid Line from Leatherman Gone are the days of carrying quality Bypass Pruners and multiple tools and having to search for them one-by-one. With the new Hybrid pruner, gardeners have the Stainless Steel pruners they need with the most commonly used tools-of-the-trade right in one convenient location: on their belt loop. With quality carrying sheaths desig…

Pruning Weeping Cherry Trees and Other Grafted and Budded
Ornamentals

You are welcome to use this article on your website or in your
newsletter as long as you reprint it as is, including the
contact information at the end. Website URLs must be active
links. You are welcome to use this article with an affiliate
link, http://www.freeplants.com/resellers.htm

What do the terms grafting and budding mean?

Budding is a form of grafting. Grafting is the art of
attaching a piece of one plant to another plant, creating a new
plant. Grafting is usually done because the desired plant is
extremely difficult if not impossible to propagate through other
means. Dogwoods, for example, are easily grown from seed,
however, it is next to impossible to grow a Pink Dogwood from
seed. The seeds from a Pink Dogwood will produce seedlings that
are likely to flower white.

The most common method for producing Pink Dogwood trees is to
remove a single bud from a Pink Dogwood tree and slip it under
the bark of a White Dogwood seedling. This process is known as
budding, and the seedling is known as the rootstock. This is
usually done during the late summer months when the bark of the
White Dogwood seedling can be easily separated from the tree,
and the seedling is about 1/4″ in diameter.

A very small “T” shaped cut is made in the bark only, and the
bud is slipped in the slot. The actual bud itself is allowed to
poke out through the opening and then the wound is wrapped with
a rubber band both above and below the bud. By the following
spring the bud will have grafted itself to the seedling, at
which time the seedling is cut off just above the Pink Dogwood
bud, and the bud then grows into a Pink Dogwood tree.

Budding is usually done at ground level, and often times the
rootstock will send up shoots from below the bud union. These
shoots, often called suckers, should be removed as soon as they
appear because they are from the rootstock and are not the same
variety as the rest of the plant. Flowering Crabapples are also
budded and are notorious for producing suckers. When removing
these suckers don’t just clip them off at ground level with
pruning shears, they will just grow back. Pull back the soil or
mulch and remove them from the tree completely at the point
where they emerge from the stem.

Most people clip them off a couple of inches from the ground,
and then they grow back with multiple shoots. This drives me
crazy! Get down as low as you can and remove them completely and
you will keep them under control. On older trees that have been
improperly pruned for years I take a digging spade and literally
attack these suckers hacking them away from the stem. Sure this
does a little damage to the stem of the tree, but when a plant
is let go like that I figure it’s a do or die situation. The
trees always survive and thrive.

Other plants are grafted up high to create a weeping effect.
One of the most popular trees that is grafted up high is the top
graft Weeping Cherry. In this case the seedling is allowed to
grow to a height of 5′, then the weeping variety is grafted on
to the rootstock at a height of about 5′. This creates an
umbrella type effect. In this case the graft union is 5′ off the
ground, therefore anything that grows from the stem below that
graft union must be removed.

Many people don’t understand this and before they know it they
have a branch 2″ in diameter growing up through the weeping
canopy of their tree. Before you know it there are several
branches growing upright through the canopy and the effect of
the plant is completely ruined.

At my website, http://gardening-articles.com I’ve got a couple
of photos that show exactly what I’m talking about in this
article. You can clearly see the weeping effect that the
Weeping Cherry tree is supposed to have, but then up through the
middle come these branches that are no more than just suckers
from the stem, or the rootstock as it is known in the nursery
industry.

Looking closely at the photos you can see that these suckers
originate from below the graft union. This problem could have
been prevented if someone had just picked off these buds when
they first emerged on the stem of the tree. Then they would
have never developed into branches.

This tree can still be saved, but there will be a large scar on
the stem when the upright branches are pruned off. But under
the canopy of the weeping tree these scars will never show.

Another interesting plant that is grafted is the Weeping
Cotoneaster. In this case the seedling that is grown to serve as
the rootstock is Paul’s Scarlet Hawthorn, and Cotoneaster
Apiculata is grafted onto the Hawthorn rootstock at a height of
5′. Years ago a nurseryman found through experimentation that
these two plants are actually compatible, and a beautiful and
unique plant was created. I have one of these in my landscape
and we love it.

Once again since the graft union is at 5′, any growth coming
from the stem (rootstock) must be removed. In this case the
growth coming from the rootstock will be Hawthorn and will look
completely different from the Cotoneaster which is what the
plant is supposed to be. The Easiest Way to keep up with this
type of pruning is to keep an eye on your grafted plants when
you’re in the yard. As soon as you see new growth coming from
below the graft union, just pick it off with your fingernail.

If you catch these new buds when they first emerge, pruning
them off is as easy as that. Walk Around Your yard and look for
grafted or budded plants, and see if you can find any that have
growth that doesn’t seem to match the rest of the plant. Look
closely and you may find that the growth is coming from below a
graft or bud union.

Michael J. McGroarty is the author of this article. Visit his
most interesting website, http://www.freeplants.com and sign up
for his excellent gardening newsletter. Article provided by
http://gardening-articles.com

What is the best way to sterilize pruning shears?

I don’t want to risk infecting plants after cutting infected plants.

Isopropyl alcohol is available off the shelf at the pharmacy or grocery store and is the accepted way to sterilize pruning shears. You can carry a small covered container with you to the garden, dip the shears in before and between cutting. You don’t even have to wipe them off since the alcohol drys quickly.