I read Russell Page’s book from 1962, The Education of a Gardener, and found he had explained my passion for pruning.

Russell Page: “I was wandering around a garden trying to give it that life and sparkle which can only come from a sharp eye and a loving and constant attention to detail. I noticed that a twelve-foot magnolia soulangiana which I had planted years before in a paved angle near the house had grown out of its bounds, that its thick foliage was blocking the view, and that it looked altogether too solid. So I began to prune it, starting rather gingerly, with a twig here and there.

Camellia after pruning has definition

The neglected camellia

“As I worked I realised that I was working with space, carving the empty air into volumes caught in the angles of branch crossing branch and held by leafy sprays: and that here in the circumference of a small tree lay the meaning of a whole relationship between art and nature.”