It's spring, now where are the pruners?

In spring, the lilac buds look plump and robust.

There's nothing subtle about spring gardening and that's why I like it. It's time to slash and burn. Gather up the bypass pruners, the ratcheting loppers, the Ho Me digger and restore order in the border. For just a brief time, a week, maybe ten days everything will be trimmed and buffed and subservient, that's before the plants start sassing back. Then gardeners will start sinking to their knees, and the natural pecking order, plants first, people second, returns.

For now though, get out there and feel superior. My first full spring day in the garden started with a Greco-Roman wrestling match in the rose patch. I laid a hard pruning on my shrub roses. I took out the oldest, thickest canes, right to the base of the plant, then thinned out weak, spindly growth. I cut back Rosa 'Complicata' by one third, the same with the ground cover type rose called 'Dart's Dash'. If you open your roses up to more light and more air circulation, they will be healthier. Don't forget to wear eye protection, a hat and good gloves, shrub roses are wickedly barbed.

From the roses I snuck up on a slumbering Caryopteris, and gave it a buzz cut. There is no artistry needed here, treat it like a perennial, shear it back to about six inches and wait for it to reproduce it's lovely mounding shape. Caryopteris is a grand shrub for late summer, when it will send up a cloud of sky blue flowers. Bees and butterflies adore it; they will be using it for offs and landings all day long.

Next, time to linger over lavender. Don't put off pruning, or you will end up with a woody, floppy plant, that bears no resemblance to the inhabitants in those gorgeous fields in France. I do a light pruning in the spring. Most books recommend hard pruning in the summer, after flowering.

If your lavender is very woody, don't cut back into the old wood or it may not push out new growth. Just to be contrary, I may cut back one of my lavenders to the bare nubbins and see what happens.

If you grow plain old culinary sage, cut it back to toothpick size now to keep it thick and bushy. If on the other hand you want it to flower do just a light snipping and enjoy the blue blossoms.

Butterfly bush, Buddleia davidii can be hacked back to a stump in the spring to boost new growth. This is another shrub to be treated like a perennial. It might seem dead as a doorknob (and sometimes it is!) but it will send up reassuring new branches, lickety split. Butterfly bush is an indispensable plant for late summer. Prowl around your favorite nursery and you might find the newer types with variegated leaves ('Harlequin') and apricot-yellow flowers ('Sungold'). I still like the dark purple flowers best.

It seemed a shame, but the next pruning target in my garden was the golden curly willow (Salix matsudana 'Golden Curls'). I cut it right back to its knobby stump and before long it will erupt into another halo of contorted yellow whips. There was an impressive pile of branches after I pruned it, and they were far too fetching to pitch on the compost pile. So I trimmed quite a few to poke in my window boxes with daffodils and pansies. Willows will root very easily-so I jammed a few in the ground to see if I can increase my stash. And on the internet on the Texas Rose Rustlers web site www.texas-rose-rustlers.com I found a recipe for making willow water. (Cut one inch pieces of tender branches, smash with hammer, drop in boiling water, remove from heat, allow to steep, when cool, use to water plants). This elixir is apparently nearly as good as rooting hormone to encourage root growth in all manner of plants.

After terrorizing my shrubs I moved on to rough up my groundcovers. The periwinkle and ivy looked wretched after our scandalous winter, burned, blotched and crispy in many spots. The only pleasing relief came from little islands of snowdrops peeping up through the mess. I am taking the hedge clippers to the stuff. By cutting off the winter-damaged leaves, I'll be promoting new, vigorous growth.

While I trimmed and tucked away I listened to the joyous chatter of song sparrows, and paused to watch a black-crowned night heron hunched in a tree like Alfred Hitchcock. The lilac buds looked plump and robust, and the forsythia was hours away from blooming. It is satisfying work, reclaiming the garden.