Informational Videos

From The Team at Useful Plants Nursery

Planting a shrub or fruit tree

Chuck Marsh demonstrates how to plant a Nanking cherry

Pruning young fruit trees

Chuck Marsh demonstrates pruning young apple trees. This method is applicable for trees that are being pruned to have a central leader and scaffolds, including apples, pears, and cherries.

Pruning trees into bushes

Debbie Lienhart demonstrates pruning a young mulberry tree into a shrub, making the plant smaller and the fruit closer to the ground.

Pruning young blueberry bushes

Troy Swift demonstrates pruning a young rabbiteye blueberry. This technique also applies to highbush blueberries and can be used with most other young shrubs.

Pruning mature blueberry bushes

Chuck Marsh demonstrates pruning a mature rabbiteye blueberry that has not had regular pruning. This procedure rejuvenates the plant and is applicable for most shrubs that grow new branches from the ground.

Planting a blueberry bush

Chuck Marsh demonstrates planting a blueberry bush. Blueberries require additional soil preparation for optimum health.

Pinch pruning

Chuck Marsh demonstrates a pruning technique called "pinch pruning" or "tip nipping," in which the branch buds are pinched off to encourage development of branches, creating a more compact plant. We use this technique on most shrubs.

Taking care of blackberries

Chuck Marsh demonstrates several techniques for late spring care of trailing blackberries in his wife's blackberry patch.

Blackberry followup

Chuck returns to the blackberry patch in early summer to check on the earlier pruning and show a little more love to the plants.

Winter protection for figs and other cold-sensitive plants

In this series of videos, Chuck Marsh demonstrates several methods for protecting figs for the winter, and then checks to see which methods worked best. We use these techniques for plants that aren't reliably hardy in our area, including figs, pomegranates, Asian persimmons, and citrus.