Latvian gardens face a common late-summer problem: plants have outgrown their beds

This year has brought unusually strong growth to ornamental trees and shrubs, and as a result many garden beds across Latvia have become too crowded for their plants. Garden designer and plant collector Indra Lielkāja from Strenči explains that gardeners now face a choice: prune the overgrown plants or transplant them elsewhere.

Pruning versus transplanting

According to Lielkāja, young plants are easy to control by trimming or shortening problematic shoots. But once plants have grown large and dense, pruning becomes far more difficult, requiring thicker and more extensive cuts. Heavy pruning of flowering shrubs also means losing next year's blooms, even though the plant will regrow its green mass abundantly. For this reason, it is often better to remove or relocate one of the competing plants and let the rest grow freely. When cutting branches on trees, it is advised not to leave stubs but to cut flush with the trunk, while branches thicker than an arm are better tied back or shortened rather than removed entirely.

Why gardens run out of space

The most common cause of overcrowding is planting too densely from the start. Trimming only offers temporary relief, and a large plant that is constantly cut back due to competition can never show its true form. Lielkāja recommends transplanting bigger plants while they can still be physically moved, which allows a garden's overall composition to be quickly improved — for example, with dense plantings along garden borders that create shelter and a favorable microclimate for other plants.

Root competition and the right time to plant

Pale or weak-looking plants may also signal root competition, a common issue in beds located near thuja or lilac hedges, where roots can take over a bed within just a few years. A temporary fix is replacing the soil, though relocating the bed away from large root systems is more effective long-term. Late August is considered a good time for planting and transplanting, since the soil retains enough moisture and the heat of summer has passed. The autumn plant fair season is also approaching, offering a wide selection of plants at good prices, allowing gardeners to choose based on their garden's specific needs for color, shape and size.