I took a branch here, a branch there. The next thing I knew I had done a dandy job of pruning five mountain ash, Canada red chokecherry (prunus virginiana shubertii), and the Amur chokecherry (prunus maackii). These trees all need to be pruned for shape. This is something that I have been working on, a little at a time, for the past three years. If I take too much off at one time, the tree will send up weak shoots, sometimes called water sprouts, that are truly of no use to the tree or me. So I continue to take my time with the job.

My prize trees, the Canada red and the Amur chokecherry, are reaching about 20 feet. Canada should achieve about 30 feet and the Amur about 40 feet when mature.

Underneath these deciduous trees are various shrubs, thus the pruning of the trees. I want them to look like trees and not big shrubs. I need them to rise above the shrubs, which they are doing, but the lower branches are making them look like they aren't. Besides, it really is difficult to walk around in the garden with tree branches smacking me in the face. And I'm short.

The Siberian larch, two of them, got a pruning also. Why? you ask. Well, the really huge one on the west side of the house is crowding the spirea and overwhelming the fuel tank, something I didn't think about when I planted it. It really is asking a lot for the fuel guy to deal with our gate but to fight his way past this tree well, enough is enough. I gave it a good pruning. Now we all can maneuver in what was a tricky spot.

But don't get carried away with pruning.

The lilacs should not be touched. They bloom on last year's wood. If you prune now you will be cutting off the blooms that you have been waiting for since the last one faded.

The red twig dogwoods, all roses, mock orange just wait until spring. You will be able to see what damage winter has wrought. When you are pruning broken branches you will also prune for shape. Do it all at once.

The roses will bloom on new wood so you have no fear there, but winter almost always does damage to the tips of the branches. This is the year that I will get serious about the Theresa Bugnet roses. They spent the first four years looking so fragile. No longer. They are lush, lovely and tall to the point of falling over. There are some obvious canes that need to be cut out right at ground level. I no longer am pampering this beauties. They are firmly established and will come under the gun come spring.

Taking a good look at all of these shrubs now is helping me make decisions that will be executed in May.

How about your raspberries? I did not prune out the spent canes this fall as is my wont to do. It makes spring clean up that much easier to have that task out of the way. But, it passed me by and there they are, easy to get to for lack of snow, and begging to be removed.

If you have never cleaned up your raspberry patch before, now just may be the perfect time. Look for the canes that had berries on them last season. They will be bushy and lighter in color than the young canes. Trust me, this will all be obvious. They will either break off, or you can cut them down to ground level with your pruners. I like to wear a hooded sweatshirt for this job. It keeps me from getting scratched and my hair from getting hopelessly tangled in the canes. Another advantage of cleaning up your raspberries is more air will move through the bed and more sun will actually make it to the berries. All advantages if you are a berry.

And here it is the end of January and I get to eat a bowl of berries (strawberry, raspberries and wild blueberries) each and every day. A little careful tending on your part will have your freezer stuffed. Who needs tasteless fruit from Mexico or wherever when we can grow our own? Get used to berries.

When we get a thaw like this one I love to go poke around the garden. It is such a good, solid, comfortable space, even now, even in the deep dark of a Far North January.

Rosemary Fitzpatrick has been gardening with gusto in Homer for 30 years. This year marks the 19th anniversary of her column.