I walked out into the garden and was shocked to see branches of my beautiful apricot tree all over the ground. My husband was hard at work cutting more. That was in my early years of gardening when I didn’t fully understand the value of giving your trees and shrubs little haircuts.
Late in the winter season is when you’ll want to prune your shrubs and trees. This is vital to the health of your plants. And it’s a lot easier to do when you don’t have to work around new, tender growth.
Pruning during this dormant season helps to reduce the stress on your shrubs and trees that could occur when the plant is actively growing. Winter pruning also reduces the risk of infestations by pests and fungus that could infect them during the regular growing season.
Why You Need To Prune Your Shrubs And Trees…
One main goal of pruning is to remove dead branches and to open up the plant to more sunlight and air circulation. This will keep your trees and shrubs healthy and focused on producing beautiful flowers, fruit, and leaves.
A few other reasons to consider pruning your shrubs and trees is to help limit their size as well as to maintain the overall structure.
The end result of all this pruning will be to help support better flower production and growth in your plants. If you’ve never pruned your shrubs and trees before, this can help rejuvenate them.
Note: DO NOT prune back your early spring-flowering plants until after they’ve bloomed. Otherwise, you risk removing all your lovely flowers. These spring bloomers would include:
- forsythia
- magnolia
- lilac
- rhododendron
- bigleaf hydrangea
- weigela
- mock orange
- beauty bush
- flowering quince
- ornamental fruit trees
- once-blooming roses
These early spring bloomers should be pruned immediately after they’re finished with their flower show. They begin to set buds for the next year once the flowers die back, so you should prune them before they start setting next year’s flower buds.
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Tools You Need:
Related…It’s Time To Spring Clean Your Garden
How To Prune Your Shrubs And Trees…
How to Prune Shrubs:
Examine your shrub for any dead branches. Cut these branches back all the way to the trunk or the ground if needed. You should also remove branches that have been broken or damaged during the winter months. If any branches are rubbing together then eliminate one of them. Remove suckers that are sprouting at the base of your plant.
As you clean up your shrubs, remove any old seed heads and dried flowers. Use heading cuts at the tips of the shrubs. This can also be beneficial if your shrubs have grown long unbranched stems. Cut back the branch to a healthy bud. But be aware that the new shoot will grow in the direction the bud is pointing.
One thing to ask yourself is whether the flowers grow on old wood or new. If the plant only flowers on new wood then pruning to the ground is usually recommended. For those plants that flower on old wood, you want to trim out the dead or damaged branches but leave the rest. For the old wood, wait until after blooming before giving them a trim in late spring or early summer.
How do you know if your flowers bloom on old or new wood?
Pay attention to the growth habits of your shrubs. When you buy a new plant, ask about how it flowers. If you know the cultivar, you can do a little research. Here are a few shrubs to be cautious of…
Shrubs That Could Bloom on Old Wood or New Wood:
- Hydrangea
- Clematis
- Roses
- Spirea
- Raspberries
Make sure that you know how your individual plant blooms before you cut it back extensively or you could lose many of your flowers for the year.
How to Prune Trees:
For small, easily accessible trees, look for dead or damaged branches to remove. Cut these back to the trunk. Also, remove any branches that are crisscrossing other branches or take away from the form of the tree.
Tree branches should grow up and slightly outward. So any branches that are growing in weird directions should be removed. It’s easy to see this growth pattern when your trees are smaller.
There’s an art to pruning trees so they will grow full and lush. If you’re unsure of this task or the trees are going to take much climbing, you might consider hiring an arborist to prune your trees.
Finally, I would suggest that you prune with a light touch. You want to keep your shrubs and trees healthy and full. Over-zealous pruning can actually damage the look of your plants. A good rule of thumb when pruning is to not remove more than one-third of your tree.
The exact time to prune in late winter will depend on your gardening zone. However, you can use this rough estimate. Prune while the plants are still dormant but getting close to the time when they’ll start developing new spring growth.
This article shows the exact placement of your cuts for shrubs and trees. If you want to see images of the best places to cut, then check it out…How and when to trim bushes and trees.
Even now after many years it still pains me to see the aftermath of a hard pruning job. I am still in the minimal prune camp while my husband is in the extreme prune camp. But if you want full healthy trees and shrubs, then some regular pruning is necessary.