An Interview with the CEO of BrightShadeGardens

An Interview with the CEO

Recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Paige Conrad, the founder and CEO of BrightShade Gardens, to discuss how she prepares her own gardens for winter. She broke her response into deciduous shrubs, perennials, grasses, evergreens and mulch.

Deciduous Shrubs

Paige always cuts back her deciduous shrubs such as spirea, American beautyberry, hydrangea, roses, Virginia sweetspire, deutzia, and lespedeza. In the specific case of pruning hydrangeas, she says that she is in the habit of cutting ugly blossoms in the fall (with far more effort to come in the spring). However, she also acknowledges that there is a bevy of information on the specific procedure of pruning hydrangeas, none of which fully guarantees that they will bloom the following year. Hydrangeas tend to be quite finicky, with blooming patterns impacted by weather conditions that differ from year to year, as well as a myriad of other factors. Plants like spirea and deutzia may be pruned heavily and will still grow back the following season. In fact, without a hard prune, they will be overgrown the following year. Paige says that she pays special attention to these plants at this time, since they are the first shrubs in her garden to wake up in the spring. You don’t want to miss your window!

Perennials

Paige cuts back any dead junk (like withered leaves/flowers) close to the ground. She’s clearly into her perennials and listed iris, peony, day lilies, Japanese anemone, baptisa, hosta, Solomon’s seal, balloon flower, liatris, solidago, echinacea, tall phlox, astilbe, catmint, Russian sage, Montauk daisy, shasta daisy… (and then I stopped writing the names down). However, there are some exceptional plants that she doesn’t touch, such as hellebore and lungwort, which keep many of their leaves during the winter. Additional exceptions are certain types of ferns, such as autumn ferns and Christmas ferns, which keep their fronds throughout the winter.

Grasses

In the case of ornamental grasses, such as Karl Foerster, Paige says that she cuts them to about six inches above the ground. She explained her reasoning, saying that if we have a particularly wet winter with either heavy snow or rain, that precipitation sits right on top of the crown, often causing it to rot. She will eventually come back in the spring and cut the grasses to the ground.

Evergreens

Evergreens are a different ballgame entirely. She says that she doesn’t trim any evergreens in the fall, as doing so runs the risk of cutting off spring blooms for plants like mahonia, laurels, boxwoods, and green giants. For some evergreens, she waits for them to flush in the spring before shaping them by hand. When asked about whether she endorses the use of machines for pruning, she said that “We pretty much never put machines on plants. If your landscaper is actively cutting most of your plants with a machine, protect your investment and ask them to stop.”

Mulch

Paige has some feelings on the subject of mulch. “We typically work through the 23rd of December. We spend the last day at Glenwood Gardens cleaning, mulching, eating lunch and the crews go home with their annual bonuses. It’s my favorite day of the year, and my gardens look amazing.” Some people use mulch to prevent the growth of weeds, but Paige thinks of mulch as an insulator, allowing a fresh spreading of mulch on her gardens before they settle down for a long winter’s nap. Since weeds will grow anyway, she prioritizes using mulch for this purpose.

Being Thankful

Since this interview happened right as Thanksgiving was on the doorstep, I asked Paige what she was thankful for. She responded,

“I am so grateful for the people that show up and go to work with us every single day. BrightShade Gardens, in the capacity it’s in now, has existed for 14 years. We have people that have worked with us for over a decade. It’s incredible that they keep showing up, and I love working with these people. I am grateful that I am able to make a living doing something that brings me this much joy. I am also very thankful for the three thousand clients to date that have trusted us with their properties. Lastly, I should share my thanks for my favorite son Conrad, who researches and writes these articles every other week. AI be damned!”

Here at BrightShade, we value the humanity of what we do, both in our internal operations and in our interactions with our amazing clients. So, the cat’s out of the bag. I’ve joined the family business and am looking forward to a future of exploring niche horticultural and landscaping topics with you. Happy Holidays!

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