Amanda and I did some serious pruning on the Chimonanthus praecox at the overlook

Some of them date from the 1970's. It's odd for me to think of the 70s as ancient history, but these plants are over 30 years old.

Many of the gardeners in the Asian Collections are one-year interns, like Amanda. When I prune, I like to be able to look a year or two or three down the road and plan my attack in stages. Amanda will likely be somewhere else next year so she doesn't have that luxury. Nonetheless, she did a very good job on the Chimonanthus. I will be there next year, and the job will be a lot easier because of what we did today.