Pruning is Natural

Mother Nature's Lessons on Growth, Renewal, and Letting Go

This week, I thought I’d share an excerpt from my upcoming book, Pruning in Provence, a memoir about the week I spent in the South of France pruning my aunt’s 130 olive trees. I plan to publish in 2025, and am curious to hear what you think.

For those of you who enjoyed reading last week’s When Worlds Collide; An Enlightened Omnivore Health Journey, I’ll be releasing next week the first in a three-part series on my experience with a pre-diabetes diagnosis. There will be doctors, technology, and mushrooms! I’ll also be launching another Enlightened Omnivore Podcast episode early in November. If you haven’t checked it out, listen to my most recent interview with James Lum of Force of Nature. Thanks again to everyone for all the support. And please recommend Enlightened Omnivore to your friends.

Pruning is Natural

Lee Reich mentions in his The Pruning Book how many gardeners are unnerved by the idea of cutting a plant. It feels like you’re doing harm. If pruning were so helpful, why doesn’t Mother Nature walk around cutting up all the trees? 

But the truth is, nature does prune in her own way. 

When I lived in New York City, I would regularly escape the urban chaos for a hike with friends in Harriman State Park. During a particularly cold February, I remember how dead silent the forest was, the trees blanked in a foot of freshly fallen snow. The leaf-bare trunks, flocked with icicles and sleet, seemed to swallow up the sounds of our feet trudging through ankle-high powder. 

“SNAP!” The silence was broken by a crackling of branches. Then a pop, almost a gunshot, rang through the woods. Frozen limb after frozen limb was breaking under the weight of all the wet snow. The frost was savagely pruning the forest.

At spring time, hungry animals are nature’s gardeners. Having survived the long hard winter, they nibble at the sprouts and twigs along the base of rejuvenated trees. Preferring the sweet-tasting shoots, these furry pruners leave behind the stronger, larger, bitter branches. 

In the summer, when the sun is high in the sky, light prunes the plants. The canopy leaves get plenty of sunshine, but these higher limbs shade shrubs and saplings on the forest floor, starving them of much needed light until they stunt, or worse, lose their leaves and wither away.

Fall is quite literally the pruning season. After reabsorbing the nitrogen and phosphorus from their summer leaves, deciduous trees intentionally shed them to conserve energy and save on water. Seed producing plants release their fruits into the world, freeing them from months of energy-depleting gestation, and allowing them to self preserve through the long cold winter yet again.  

And so the cycle continues, and Mother Nature keeps on with her worthy act of pruning. 

Why I Prune

Kids nowadays want to be big and tall. I remember my daughters hoping they would grow to six feet. When the measuring tape stopped adding inches, they complained. their respectable five foot six—two inches taller than the average for women—just wasn’t sufficient. 

But growing tall isn’t always a blessing. It requires an enormous amount of energy to accomplish. It monopolizes scarce resources, taking them away from others. Just look at my refrigerator after my son gets home from school. His current growth spurt ensures that no number of grocery store visits will keep us sufficiently provisioned. 

Those who grow too quickly, may get stretch marks or pains in their joints. Rapid growth in one direction may make things lopsided or imbalanced. Reaching for more sunshine or opportunity is often at the expense of another part or person, always resulting in someone going without. 

I’m not suggesting I stunt my son’s growth, or stretch my daughters, but when I am too eager to grow, or when I rush to reach for the next achievement, I often suffer more than I succeed. I pay the price of impatience. Maybe a little pruning might redirect, slow things down to a more prudent rate, or consolidate efforts on stronger limbs.

And of course, one of nature’s ironies is that pruning can sometimes actually stimulate growth, reinvigorating us to try new and different directions, to force through a previous block, or identify an unforeseen opportunity. We are all reaching for the light, and sometimes previous years’ growth no longer aids in that goal. Maybe it even blocks out some of the Sun’s rays. Cutting back, making room, and allowing for new avenues can revive even the most dormant soul. 

My Cara Cara citrus tree has decided to bloom in October—four months early—because I inappropriately pruned it in August.

Then there are those who like to grow haphazardly, randomly, or recklessly. They get all twisted up in their own arms and legs. They become their own worst enemies. Often, they won’t realize the error of their ways for many years until they have knotted up their own noose. Cutting back criss-crossed branches prevents us from harming ourselves, reduces would-be injury, straightens out our paths, and gives us that second chance. 

Darkness is a product of poor pruning. Inadequate air flow, moisture, lonely shadows all encourage the pesky organisms, bacteria and parasites that lead to decay and disease. Where we allow darkness to develop, we invite complacency and fear, neglect. Stale air can slowly suffocate the most eager of beings. Dampness softens our resolve, weighs us down, and weakens our limbs. We hide our true self in the shadows. Illness and anger soon to fester. Pruning away these wounds and rot are sometimes the best medicine for moving forward, inviting in the light, and finding resolution.

Then there are the branches that shatter our world. They snap and splinter, flinging shrapnel every which way. As they fall to the ground, they peel away some of our bark, leaving behind deep lingering scars. When this trauma occurs, we must generously cut away the jagged edges to prevent infection. And if a limb has already developed gangrene, it must be removed in its entirety before it can metastasize. Sometimes cutting off a perfectly healthy part is a necessary harm. 

Ultimately, we prune because we want to beautify things—not just for the sake of appearance, but to create balance, health, and longevity. Pruning is an act of care, a way to nurture growth by making room for new life. It’s about seeing potential, even in the gnarled and tangled, and shaping it into something stronger and more resilient.

With pruning, we let go of the parts that weigh us down, the distractions that pull us in too many directions, the emotional deadwood that no longer serves us. Through pruning, we bring light back into our lives, allow space for new growth, and protect ourselves from the weight of unexamined burdens.

In the end, pruning is natural, and the beauty that emerges is not just in what remains, but in what has been given the chance to flourish.

This piece is an excerpt from my memoir in progress, Pruning in Provence, which I am eagerly working on for publication some time in 2025. Let me know what you think, and if you like what you read, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help me finish this darn manuscript.

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