Profits from Prunings

Any mature garden generates a certain amount of woody waste every year, and it needs getting rid of. But prunings can’t be composted, and with bonfires off-limits and trips to the municipal tip costing a fortune in petrol, disposal is becoming a problem. Well, try recycling your twiggy garden rubbish instead.

Elderly bamboo plants yield a number of dead canes every year which don’t look good left in an otherwise flourishing clump. Cut them off at ground level and leave them to dry thoroughly in the shed, by spring you’ll have a home-grown supply of perfectly good garden canes, even if they aren’t as long, thick and strong as ones you’d buy at the garden centre.

Trim the thin, weak tops off, and cut them to various lengths; they’ll still come in handy for supporting a range of plants in pots or tubs, and you can weave or tie them together to create decorative trellis, obelisks and ‘cage’ supports for perennials, that would cost a fortune if you’d bought them. Even if they only last a fear or two, they’re easily replaced and don’t cost a cent.

Besides bamboos, several popular garden shrubs produce long, straight stems that can be used in much the same way. Red-stemmed dogwoods and shrubby willows NEED their older stems cut down close to the ground each March to encourage colourful new growth, so the harvest of old stems comes in handy at just the right time of year.

Meanwhile fruit trees, soft fruit bushes and grape vines need pruning in winter, and even if their offcuts aren’t much use as plant supports they are worth cutting up into 6-8 inch lengths and storing somewhere dry to use for lighting your wood-burning stove, open fire or summer barbecues; they are cheaper than buying bags of kindling, and far ‘greener’ than firelighters – and their fruity-fragranced smoke smells better too.

And if you have long straight stems of hazels or ornamental elders, they are brilliant woven between short upright poles set into the ground to make home-made hurdles for supporting flowers that overhang the edge of your lawn, or for weaving into gaps in a hedge as rustic fencing. So don’t waste good materials; be creative with them instead.