I got a lesson in pruning hydrangeas last week. It was sorely overdue: all of last year’s dried blooms were still on the bushes. 

My garden pro said, “The flowers are heavy, so the first thing I check is whether the branch is sturdy enough to hold flowers off the ground. If not….” She jostled a flimsy stem and cut off three feet of it. As she helped me feel up another branch and count the buds, she asked, “Do you cook? The spot to cut is like the spot where you snap asparagus, the change from woody to floppy.”

Later, checking my work, she says, “Long-term, you also want to think about airflow, and limiting spots where branches cross and might rub each other raw.” At this point, I am mute, overwhelmed by all the poetic richness of potential metaphors in pruning. 

I’m always thinking about what I can add to prioritize growth, growth, growth. It’s never “What should I cut away so that what is already thriving has room to flourish?” After I spend 90 minutes shoulder deep in the shrubs, I tell her to editorialize my work as she wishes, then run away to do errands.

That afternoon, back home and marveling at my professionally-tended yard, I pause by the largest hydrangea. After her care, every branch has room to move in the breeze. The plant is going to have the best summer of its life. And left to my own devices, I would simply have cut off the dead blooms. (Eventually. Probably.)

Since the lesson, I’ve been wondering: what in my life that is going okay-ish could I prune? This moment finds me positively flooded with potential areas ready to blossom. There are definitely more possible metaphorical flowers than there are sturdy structures to support them. I’m still pondering what to trim.

In the meantime, if you need me this week, I’ll be nerving myself up to finally take the advice to pinch secondary buds off our peonies. Maybe those main stems holding up their blooms, instead of falling into the driveway and walkways, will help me cut away what is going okay to make room for something spectacular.