A novice here. I've recently moved into a house with a pleasant but - for the
last three months - neglected garden.

I'm sure there's a list of jobs I will need to attend to since there seems to be
a wide variety of shrubs (though I suspect nothing extraordinary) but I am
concerned about what, with the help of my readers digest pics, I've identified
as a weigela, It's about 8 feet tall (RD seems to set 6 feet as standard) just
started to flower but has some particularly long stems growing from its middle -
anything up to 11 feet tall. Can I cut these back now or should I wait until
the flowering has finished?

Also roses of many kinds (sorry for my blind ignorance on this) I suspect shrub,
climbing etc. Any rules of thumb for pruning etc that I could use for immediate
guidance prior to achieving my goal of becoming competent?

most grateful for any input.

On Thu, 05 Aug 2004 11:06:53 +0100, John Edgar
wrote:

On Thu, 05 Aug 2004 11:28:25 +0200, curiosity [email protected] wrote:

A novice here. I've recently moved into a house with a pleasant but - for the
last three months - neglected garden.

I'm sure there's a list of jobs I will need to attend to since there seems to be
a wide variety of shrubs (though I suspect nothing extraordinary) but I am
concerned about what, with the help of my readers digest pics, I've identified
as a weigela, It's about 8 feet tall (RD seems to set 6 feet as standard) just
started to flower but has some particularly long stems growing from its middle -
anything up to 11 feet tall. Can I cut these back now or should I wait until
the flowering has finished?

Also roses of many kinds (sorry for my blind ignorance on this) I suspect shrub,
climbing etc. Any rules of thumb for pruning etc that I could use for immediate
guidance prior to achieving my goal of becoming competent?

most grateful for any input.

We have one of these. The trick is to remove 1/3rd old growth every
July. Personally I think that's too much, so I take out about 1/6th.
We have done this for the past 2 years (only found out about it then)
and we get a second flowering, now. It' great and obviously likes what
we are doing.
John
In limine sapientiae

thanks - have just given it your treatment.