HORTICULTURAL ARTS WORKSHOP
The Art of Pruning: Hands-on in the Wonder Garden
Instructor: Maryann Lewis, Certified Aesthetic Pruner
Saturday, October 13 | 9:00am-12:00pm
Admission: $35
Workshop Limit: 12
An elegantly pruned small tree is a heady sight, its muscular arms bearing layers of foliage, its shape in synch with its surroundings. Such a tree betrays scant sign of human interference. Oh to be a plant so well-pruned!
Certainly, many are. As yours can be, too, after participating in this 3-hour workshop with aesthetic pruner and instructor, Maryann Lewis.
With her classroom the Wonder Garden at the Hoffman Center for the Arts, Ms. Lewis will offer a dozen students the opportunity to observe, discuss and strategize approaches to pruning shrubs and small trees. Beginning with basic woody plant biology, she’ll demonstrate different pruning tools and cuts, describe how and when to use each, and discuss long-term plant management to achieve aesthetic balance in the garden.
Over the course of the morning, Ms. Lewis will also walk the class, step-by-step, through the pruning of several small trees on the premises, including the large, muscular Hollywood juniper that stands as a sentinel at the entrance to the Wonder Garden. Watching the plant’s transformation will speak to the very heart of aesthetic pruning.
Maryann Lewis is a master of Aesthetic Pruning, an approach that combines horticultural science with principals of art and design. Formerly a California architect, she began her own aesthetic pruning business in 2005 and later co-founded the Aesthetic Pruners Association. She now lives in Portland, OR.
Aesthetic Pruning is rooted in Japanese garden pruning and bonsai as well as contemporary arboriculture. Its intent is to honor both the horticultural well-being of a woody plant and its aesthetic role in the landscape.
Much like a sculptor who imagines her figure breaking free from stone, Ms. Lewis reads a plant’s inherent structure and works to release its form.
Her tools are not merely clippers and pruning saws but light, shadow, space and time.
Maryann Lewis’ website is maryannlewis.com Her email is [email protected]
The Art of Pruning: Hands-on in the Wonder Garden
Instructor: Maryann Lewis, Certified Aesthetic Pruner
