As tempting as it might be to break out those shears and prune your plants with abandon this spring, you may be doing more harm than good to your trees and shrubs. Find out how to prune properly this spring for a beautiful garden year-round!

Join Clallam County Master Gardeners Gordon Clark, Tom Del Hotal and Keith Dekker

For the 2024 Digging Deeper Saturdays presentation:

“Pruning Basics on the North Olympic Peninsula”

will be held in person on:

Saturday April 20th from 10:30 a.m. to Noon

at the Woodcock Demonstration Garden, in Sequim.

Why is proper pruning so important? It helps maintain a plant’s structural strength, shape, size control and fruit or flower production. It’s also important if your garden is overplanted, you want your view back or the shrubs are touching each other. Gordon, Tom and Keith will discuss tree, shrub, perennial and ground cover pruning, how to use pruning tools and the proper types of pruning cuts. They will also talk about why pruning is needed for the continued health of the plant and the best season to prune a variety of plants.

Keith has focused the last 32 years of his career on the comprehensive care of residential landscapes in the Pacific Northwest. As a Clallam County Master Gardener and active volunteer with PlantAmnesty, Keith contributes to his community by teaching classes and giving talks to promote best practices for successful, sustainable gardening.

Tom has been a horticulturist and nurseryman since 1977. He is a Certified Arborist and was a horticulture instructor at a local college in San Diego for over 20 years. Tom owned his part-time business, Fantasia Gardens, (a fruit tree specialty nursery and fruit tree pruning and consulting business that specialized in home and small-scale commercial orchard design and fruit tree management services) from 1983-2020. Tom is currently a Clallam County Master Gardner.

Gordon currently owns and operates Clark Horticultural, an organic landscape maintenance business which specializes in ornamental pruning. He successfully completed the Environmental Horticulture program at Lake Washington Institute of Technology, has been a WSNLA Certified Professional Horticulturist for over 20 years, an ISA Certified Arborist for 19 years, and a Master Gardener for three years. In the past, Gordon has presented many pruning lectures and demonstrations for the Master Gardeners and other organizations.

Digging Deeper Saturdays presentations, sponsored by the Washington State University Clallam County Master Gardeners, are held 10:30 a.m. to 12 noon on the third Saturday of selected months. Presentations cover basic gardening topics, are free and open to the public and are scheduled for 90 minutes to allow for demonstrations or questions. This presentation will be held in-person, out of doors at the Master Gardener Woodcock Demonstration Garden. Attendees are encouraged to check the Clallam County Master Gardener online calendar and social media for updates.

For more information about “Pruning Basics in the North Olympic Peninsula” or the Digging Deeper Saturdays, call 360-565-2678.