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Spring Pruning

I got a lesson in life recently from Brian, the young man my husband hired to do some spring yard work: “Sometimes it hurts when you gotta do the right thing.”

The “right thing” he’s referring to was his decision to hack a bunch of limbs off of my joyously blooming lilac bush.

“It’s healthier,” he insisted as I stood in stunned silence holding the giant bloom-laden branches, tears welling up in my eyes. “Next year, it’ll grow taller and bloom so much better.”

That’s not much comfort, since I liked my bush just fine the way it was. Now I have a half-naked lilac bush with a gaping hole in the foliage that used to provide a modicum of privacy in our very small village plot.

When my husband approached me with the idea of hiring someone to clean the yard for spring, I was in full agreement. We were looking at a major league mess of leaves and downed tree limbs, and neither of us had the ambition to tackle it ourselves. But I had emphatically insisted that I did not want someone messing around with my plants. No trimming, replanting, pruning, or picking of flowers, shrubs or trees. Just rake the leaves, mow the lawn, and get rid of the accumulation of branches and sticks.

The first guy that came to give us a quote spent half an hour regaling me with the details of his recent ankle surgery, then asked me if I wanted him to yank out "that giant weed" (no thanks, it's a rose bush; it’s supposed to be there). He finished the tour with a detailed discussion of his wife's caesarian section, subsequent gruesome hernia and impending hysterectomy, and then gave my husband an estimate of $200 to clean up the yard.

"Too much," David said. Yes, on all accounts.

Two days later, David hired Brain, a former employee who now attends college and works for a landscaper. I was a little relieved. At least he wouldn't talk my ear off. But I never expected him to lop my limbs off.

I confess that I get a little emotional over my plants. When we moved into our house 12 years ago, my husband took out a beautiful cedar tree at the back of our postage-sized property. (I remind him occasionally that he may have removed the only cedar tree left on Cedar Place.) Two years ago he completely ripped out the wild tangle of blackberry bushes next to the garage. (In a fit of defiance, I salvaged a few stalks and planted them behind the house, which is now replete with bushes.) Last year, when our neighbor took out a tree to accommodate their new pool, I cried. (It wasn’t even my tree.)

And now I was shedding tears over my lilac bush.

"Hey, clip all the flowers off of these branches and put them in vases," Brian suggested brightly. "They’ll make the house smell nice.”

Slowly, I dragged the branches to the front yard and began salvaging blooms. It's just a plant, I know. And I understand the concept of pruning in order to make something blossom more the next season. God does it in our lives all the time. But I trust God not to overdo it.

Brian? Not so much. “What are these things? Onions?” he asked, pulling up a handful of crocus leaves and bulbs and tossing them on the trash pile.

I put a halt to the carnage right then, and suggested that Brian join us for pizza. The front yard never got cleaned but that’s OK. At least my shrubs and plants are safe from Brian’s overenthusiastic need to prune and trim. David and I will have to do the rest of the yard work ourselves, which we probably should have done in the first place.

Yes, sometimes it hurts when you gotta do the right thing.

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