The three T’s of pruning are timing, tools and technique. Each one is important to successfully manage the growth of your trees and shrubs. But timing comes first.
A hedge planting’s first pruning typically happens after its first growing season, once its roots start to become established and new growth is sent up. Now is the time you can begin training the young plants into formal shapes to which they’ll be maintained throughout the remainder of their lives.
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
There are two types of hand pruning shears available: anvil and bypass. For shrub and tree pruning, always choose bypass pruners (shown here) to make the closest cuts and help avoid crushing the wood.
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Timing is affected primarily by the climate in which your plants are growing, the nature of the plant you need to prune and what you’re trying to achieve. Fortunately, there are several guidelines to help you. Generally, the shaping of a young deciduous tree or the removal of a large limb from a mature deciduous tree is best done toward the end of the dormant season, when the trees are still leafless and before growth begins in spring. (Shaping evergreen trees, however, is most readily accomplished in spring or early summer.)
For flowering shrubs, pruning time is guided by when the plant blooms. Spring-flowering shrubs such as azalea, forsythia and weigela are normally pruned after they bloom. This allows their flower buds to set naturally in fall and provides for a nice flower display the following spring. On the other hand, summer-blooming shrubs are best pruned in the dormant winter season since their flower buds form on new growth, which begins to develop in spring. Among the summer-blooming shrubs that benefit from dormant-season pruning are abelia, heavenly bamboo, beautybush, crape myrtle, cranberrybush, viburnum and sweetshrub.
Shrubs that are grown for their foliage rather than their flowers can be pruned during late winter, spring or early summer. Pruning typically generates a flush of new growth right below each cut, so pruning in late winter or early spring is a great way to make a shrub fuller or bushier. Of course, summer pruning is necessary for trimming wayward shoots or cutting away unwanted suckers from a shrub’s rootstock.
As a general rule, pruning in fall or the early winter months should be avoided. Pruning at that time of year may encourage tender new growth that’s subject to frost damage by the winter cold. Of course, you can cut away diseased or dead wood on a tree or shrub at any time of the year. In fact, make this – and regular pinching of growth buds to shape growth – part of your routine garden maintenance.
With the right pruning practices, your love of the outdoors and of all things that grow will undoubtedly increase as you care for your garden over the years. Each season you’ll notice something new, and you’ll come to a deeper appreciation of the distinctive traits of each of your plants.
