Give your landscape a facelift with a bit of proper pruning.
Overgrown and lackluster shrubs can be transformed into beautiful specimens with a few properly placed pruning cuts.
What You Need
• Safety Glasses
• Leather Gloves
*Elbow high gauntlet gloves protect forearms from thorns and prickles
• Bypass (two sharp blades that cut like scissors) hand pruner for small stems
• Bypass loppers to extend your reach and for larger diameter stems
• Pruning Saw for large stems
*A reciprocating saw allows easy access to narrow spaces and provides extra power
When to Prune
• Late winter or early spring before growth begins is a good time to prune summer flowering shrubs like summer blooming spirea, hydrangea, and potentilla
• Wait to prune spring flowering shrubs like lilac, forsythia and bridal wreath spirea after they flower
*Prune soon after flowering as these plants set their flower buds mid summer prior to spring bloom
*Pruning at other times removes the flower buds eliminating spring bloom
*Consider doing major pruning jobs in late winter, you’ll sacrifice the flowers but it is less stressful on the plant
• Prune arborvitae, junipers and yews in early spring before growth begins
*Prune wayward new growth in mid summer
*Avoid pruning evergreens in late summer, fall, or early winter. This can increase the risk of winter burn.
• Avoid late summer and early fall pruning as this can stimulate late season growth that is more subject to winter kill.
Why Prune
• Reduce the size and improve the shape of overgrown plants
• Increase flowering and fruit production and improve bark color
• Remove dead, damaged, or diseased stems
• Eliminate crossing, rubbing or inward facing stems
Where to make cuts - Prune to maintain the natural form and shape of the plant
• Make cuts 1/4 of an inch above an outward facing bud
*slanting down and away from the bud
*vary height of these cuts
- new dense growth occurs just below the pruning cut
• Where a smaller branch joins a larger branch
• Back to the main trunk or at ground level
Types of Pruning
• Maintenance - Proactive pruning to keep shrubs healthy and looking good
*Start with dead and diseased stems
*Remove any crossing, rubbing or inward facing stems.
*Reduce size by cutting one or two older stems to ground level.
*Prune a few longer branches back to shorter adjoining branches
• Renewal – For overgrown shrubs
*Suckering shrubs like red twig dogwood
- Remove one fourth of the older stems to ground level
- Shorten the remaining stems as needed
- Repeat over a 3 to 4 year period
- Once renewed – switch to maintenance pruning
• Rejuvenation – Severely overgrown & tolerant of this type of pruning
*Tolerant shrubs such as
- forsythia, snowball hydrangea, Rose of Sharon, spirea, and lilac
*Remove all growth to ground level
- Stimulates lots of new stems that will need thinning
- Can result in an even taller plant than before pruning
*Remove as much as ¾ of the new growth to ground level
*Reduce height as needed
*Switch to maintenance pruning once plants are the desired size and shape
• Hedging/Shearing –Pruning into formal hedges, geometric shapes and topiary
*Tolerant shrubs – shearing is high maintenance and hard on plants
- Privet, yew, and durable plants with small, closely spaced leaves
*Prune so the top of the hedge is narrower than the bottom
*Use rejuvenation pruning when hedge is top heavy and bare on the bottom
A Few Specifics
• Japanese (summer blooming) spirea, Annabelle hydrangeas and potentilla
*This method reduces problems with floppy growth
- Prune back all stems halfway
- Prune 50% of the larger/older stems to ground level
- Lightly shear spirea after flowering
* encourages 2nd even 3rd flush of bloom
• Juniper and arborvitae need little pruning
*Prune longer branches back to upward growing side branch
*Feather prune (remove long branches back to trunk) on spreading junipers
*This type of pruning hides cuts and keeps plants looking young and natural
Written by, Melinda Myers. Melinda Myers is a nationally recognized gardening expert with more than 30 years of horticulture experience. She is a wealth of knowledge and we are pleased to share Melinda’s Gardening How-To with you!
