Shrubbery
Community Resource Advocates is designed to assist board members to research “best known practices” and to offer solutions for sustainable options in your community for plant care. CRA (Community Resource Advocates) is not recommending, suggesting or promoting any specific contractor, only the research, so you as board members can understand what works and what doesn’t. CRA only shares professional advice that is promoted as ‘sustainable’ and would use this information to create a sustainable seasonal containment schedule for your community.
Best Time To Prune Flowering Shrubs in Phoenix
“Different blooming shrubs require pruning at different times of the year depending on when they actually bloom.
Also, pruning should only be done to cut unhealthy branches or branches that do not need to be on the plant for any good purpose. Pruning practices should only be done for the health of the shrub with optimum blooming for the shrub.
These practices have been established by the Sustainable Landscape Management system and are promoted through the Arizona Landscape Contractors Association.”
Why is maintaining curb appeal important?
All HOA communities have shrubbery, ground covers and granite. If you drive down any street you will see the plants cut into small round balls, triangles, and/or large round shearing with the trunks of the plants exposed by cutting the low branches to the plant. All these activities are not considered “sustainable” and harm the plants. Arizona Landscape Contractors Association (ALCA) has worked with the Arizona Extension Office to understand the research and to teach these sustainable practices.
ALCA has been teaching contractors sustainable procedures for over thirty years, however this information has not been widely spread to the general public when it comes to plant care. Contractors will only create a ‘sustainable practice’ when asked by the board members to do so. Landscape maintenance teams that come weekly usually have the equipment training but not seasonal plant care and are given a ‘trim cycle’ schedule instead of a seasonal trim containment method.
Unfortunately, it seems the majority of the public also believes that unless a plant is round and sheared, it is not tended to properly. However, research has proven over-shearing takes away the plants food supply to recoup from the shearing. Lifting the bottom branches takes the shade away from the root system and dries up the water supplied to the plant as well as promoting disease. As a reminder, ‘sustainability’ is the definition of preserving and conserving your assets and over-shearing provides the opposite effect.
Sustainable practices will consist of ‘preventable policies.’ Community Resource Advocates will educate on preventable actions as well as assisting in creating a sustainable program for your shrubs and groundcovers in your community.