Pruning the pear tree

My husband goes by the book. Literally. He has about 10 different gardening books he sifts through before he does anything. My philosophy is, “Well, my mom does this every year and it works for her.” Or my newest version:

Me: “Well, Ed did it and it worked.”
My husband: “Who’s Ed?”
Me: “You know, from The Garden at 8505.”
My husband: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Me: “From the blog. You know Ed, the gardener whose wife wrote the post about the no-poo.”
My husband: “No-poo?”
Me: “She wrote a post about using no shampoo. You know, the one who pruned his pear trees with his son. I showed you last week.”
My husband: “Oh yeah. The guy in the hat.”

Or—“You know the woman from Bulgaria who has the two donkeys.” Or “Marcia, the one from south Florida that always does the write-ups on the local festivals.” Or I only have to say “Nadine” or “Polish mom photographer” and he’s got it. Sometimes, as I sit here typing away, I imagine them sitting around the table with me typing on their own lap tops. “Can you pass the tea?” one of them will ask.

I’ve been blogging so much, I speak about other bloggers like they’re my neighbors. People I’ve known for years. I look forward to their posts, their stories. It’s the friendships and the new things I’m learning that I like the most. Like an interactive class of some sort on life.

So, when Ed said back in January it was the prime time to prune the pear tree, my ears perked up. We have a pear tree in our back yard, and it didn’t produce big fruit this year. Maybe I could remedy that. So, when my husband arrived home, here I came with my line.

Me: “Ed says right now is the time to prune the pear tree.”
My husband: “Ed who?”
(Insert conversation from above.)

My husband: “I don’t know. I don’t want to cut too much back.”
Me: “Well, Ed already did his tree, so I think we should do it.”

I wacked that thing to death only to go back and read Ed’s post days later and it said, “since I have nothing to lose.” Oops. That wasn’t the wording I remembered. With crap upper body strength, I’d pointed at all the branches I thought should go, and my dear sweet husband fought me all the way. “We’re cutting back too much. We’re going to kill it.”

So, when Ed wrote his post There’s  life in them limbs, I immediately went out to examine ours.

Nothing.

My husband: “Well, we did prune our tree weeks after he did his. Give it time. But I’m afraid we might have killed it.
Me: “No we didn’t. It’s impossible to kill a tree.”
My husband: “No, it isn’t.”
Me: “Yes, it is.”
My husband: “My book says…”
Me: “Well, Ed says it isn’t.”
(Though he didn’t really say this, it sounded good at the time.)

Weeks later…

We can sleep easy. We didn’t kill it, after all. And like I said, I don’t need no stinkin’ book. ED SAID. And that’s usually what I go by. What someone says or does is just as good as any book—when it comes to gardening at least! After all, they’ve done it and I’ve heard about it. But I don’t know the author of that book.

My husband disagrees. “It’s written by experts,” he says.

Yeah, well.
I don’t know that guy.
I know Ed.

Other articles about pruning and pears:

• Tis the Season for Pruning (openviewgardens.com)
• The Prickly Pear Tree (godsgracegodsglory.wordpress.com)
• Day 75. Bradford Pear Tree Bird (mkdickerson.com)
• Pear Preserve Revenge (sweetpea0944.wordpress.com)
• Building a Garden (mommyhatescooking.com)
• Gardens and Greenhouse in Action (growingfoodandsustainability.wordpress.com)
• Pruned by the Master Gardener (strengthrenewed.wordpress.com)