March is a good time to prune dogwood and I fancied a challenge today. 

​​​
After about an hour the beast was knocked into some sort of shape. I wanted to keep the form and most of the height, but remove a lot of the bulk and all the crisscrossing branches. 

Crisscrossing branches are generally A Bad Thing as they can wound the plant and lead to disease. And it’s good to rein in overgrown plants to give the garden more light and air. 

Here’s before and after.

It’s always satisfying to do some hard pruning. And now I have a zillion dogwood branches to use around the garden. 

I find that each job done results in more things to do… but I love it 😍