Pruning or butchery?

I've tackled several pruning tasks during the past week.  Some of these were on my list, while others were handled on the fly.  With pruning tools in hand, I'm easily distracted.  I always think they're going to be quick jobs but somehow few of these turn out to be that easy.  As I'm a neat-freak, letting me loose with pruners can lead me to go overboard while cutting back plants.  I'm often left wondering if I've butchered my plant.  Usually, things turn out alright and the plants rebound but, until that happens, I worry.

I hadn't planned on cutting back the guava tree in my north side garden but I saw some twiggy bits I thought I could quickly trim away before tackling a different job.  Ninety minutes later, I'd narrowed the tree and reduced its height.  I don't have a "before" shot - these are the "after" views from the front and back.  It looks fine, although now I realize I need to prune the overgrown Leucadendron 'Chief' next to it; however, that's a job for another day.

I hadn't added the Senna bicapsularis to my to-do list either but I thought I could put quick work to this one as well.  It always produces flowers atop tall bare stems.  I've no "before" shot here either.  In this case I cut it back as shown in the photo on the left, only to come back 3 days later to chop it back even further, as shown on the right.  I'm divided on whether I've gone too far or not far enough on this one.

My target for work on the back slope was the tangled mess including a Vesalea floribunda (aka Mexican abelia) and a trailing Lantana, shown in the middle of the photo on the left.  It was a bigger mess than I'd imagined.  The photo on the right shows what was left of the Vesalea when I finished.

I've tried and failed to propagate the Vesalea from cuttings.  It reportedly fares better when propagated using layering, where stems attached to the parent plant trail the ground and develop roots.  The plant on the left appears to have done that.  I think the plant on the right is the remnant of the Lantana that merged with the Vesalea but I'm not positive.  I'm waiting to see what happens with both these plants before pulling either up.

I made 2 stabs at cutting back the Tagetes lemmonii (aka Mexican marigold).  I suspect it'll come back even reduced to a third of its original size but it's easy enough to replace if it declines.  The faded fox is a sentimental favorite I've had for 15+ years.  I may make a stab at painting him, or let him go.

The overgrown Vitex trifolia is shown in the wide shot on the left behind the Dasylirion longissima.  I cut it down by half to bare branches.  It's no longer visible in the wide shot on the right.  I've cut it back severely before but I may have taken it too far this time.

The photo on the left shows the Vitex's pretty purple and olive green foliage. Cutting the Vitex back to its bare branches, as shown on the right, revealed a large Acanthus mollis I almost forgot was there and a variety of succulents previously hidden.  It also revealed a lot of grass weeds (probably Bermuda grass) and some die-back to the Salvia clevelandii, which I still need to attend to.

I cleaned up the Crassula pubescens ssp radicans that's formed a mass at the base of a stump.  No problems with that simple exercise.

I took care of a few other things this week in the course of my pruning activity. 

While on the slope to tackle the Vesalea, I performed a general cleanup.  It looks neater, if nothing else.

The Calendula seedlings were overrunning one of my cutting garden beds, making me think that there were more Ranunculus coming up than there really were.  I thinned the Calendula, moving some of those seedlings elsewhere.

I added 3 Aloe striata x maculata pups and several Aeonium arboreum cuttings to the top tier of the front slope below the Arbutus 'Marina' tree.  The photo has a reddish color due to the effects of the smokey light when it was taken yesterday.

I got less done this week than I'd hoped due largely to the fires that erupted across Los Angeles County.  We'd been warned of "life-threatening winds" but it sounded like hyperbole until the first fire broke out in Pacific Palisades thirty-five miles to the north on Tuesday morning.  Later that afternoon another massive fire emerged in Eaton Canyon in Altadena, spreading into Pasadena and other surrounding areas.  My own area in Southern California's South Bay doesn't have an active fire but we've been impacted by the smoke from those two fires, which together have burned over 32,000 acres.  There are currently six fires burning in the County with only two of the smallest fires partially contained.   I've lived in Southern California my entire life and have seen many fires touched off by Santa Ana winds but this is the most intense event I've ever seen.  Some 180,000 people are under evacuation orders.  Pacific Palisades has been decimated by the loss of 6000 structures and the Eaton fire has taken nearly 1000 more.  At least five people have died.  My confinement to the house due to smoke is trivial by comparison.

View of the smoky haze on Wednesday afternoon

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