Design a design with design.

When we hear the word design it is because we are either looking at a product - the design of a garden. Or we are taking action, such as lets design a garden for the front yard. During the process of designing a garden we will be using design tools such as line, movement, asymmetry, space, and color just to name a few. These tools are often referred to as elements of design and they are really good at capturing our imagination and fueling creativity.

If you are in a design industry such as architecture, graphic design or engineering the process of design functions as a series of decision making goalposts referred to as design phases. Each industry has developed their own lingo but they all follow a similar trajectory.

1. Commitment: We have a project.

2. Assessing and information gathering.

3. Identifying the program, parameters or function.

4. Ideating and selecting which decision to work with.

5. Implementing the proposed solutions.

6. Refining or adjusting as needed.

I think fruit tree pruning has developed with all of these phases design but when it comes to pruning our ornamental trees and shrubs we don’t think of design at all. We often go from gathering all of our technical information in phase 2 and jump right to phase 5. This means we completely skip over phases 3 and 4. 

Aesthetic pruning adds phases 3 and 4 in the form of identifying the role the plant plays in order to Tell a Story and developing the best branches for the future in Finding the Good. Adding these two steps not only elevates your pruning choices but makes those choices easier to discover.

When I train other pruners these are the two phases we work on the most. Learning how to read the garden is easier to incorporate than finding the good. For various reasons the pruning industry is focused on removing everything that is wrong but sometimes that leaves us with nothing but a stump. If you can switch your mindset to first identifying what is working for your specific tree, then all of a sudden your choices for what to keep and what to remove will be much easier to make.  This is why I included Tell a Story and Find the Good in my course Pruning Decisions with a Plan.

Some people might incorporate these phases instinctively but if not, these two phases will open your eyes to new possibilities if you are new to pruning but also elevate the skills of an experienced pruner.

Tell a Story and Find the good are the two design phases the world of pruning is missing.

On My Mind

Video

A few of the gardens I prune in have been featured on In the Garden with Claudia and The Mr. Maple Show. I don’t prune everything but these are amazing gardens and the videos are well done. There is some repetition between the shows but each host has a different focus and you will learn a lot about maples and conifers. I created a playlist on my YouTube channel. 

Podcast

December 19, 2025 Learn to Paint Podcast, Interview with Mark Eanes, Ep.28 May 2, 2023

Mark Eanes does a great job breaking down design elements and discussing the difference between design and composition. This is well worth a listen even if you are not a painter.

Books

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards

Chapter 4: Crossing Over: Experiencing the Shift From Left to Right and Chapter 7: Perceiving the Shape of a Space: The Positive Aspects of Negative Space

Even if you don’t want to learn to draw these two chapters are especially useful for understanding how your brain perceives the visual world. This is especially useful when deciding which design elements work best with your tree.

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