When Pruning is Necessary

Please follow and like us:
Receive Blog from Email
Facebook
Facebook
YouTube
LinkedIn
Pinterest
Pinterest
Instagram
SHARE
RSS

When Pruning is Necessary

pruning

I am not a big fan of pruning; it is probably my least favorite garden chore. In fact, I believe many shrubs and trees are over-pruned. In most cases, dead, diseased, weak or broken branches can be pruned any time of year. If additional pruning is needed on an ornamental shrub, I encourage you to thin out at the base rather than hedge off the top. It is not only healthier for the plant but more aesthetically pleasing.

Pruning is often necessary to maintain a plant’s health and natural beauty. Following are my cutting-edge practices on pruning:

The best time to prune most plants and trees is when they are dormant; winter or early spring is ideal. This is my favorite time because there are no leaves and it is easy to see the plant’s branch structure.

Early spring -flowering shrubs should be pruned after they have bloomed, preferably before July 4th. If you prune flowering shrubs or trees, like Lilac and Forsythia, before they have produced blooms, you will forfeit blooms for that season only.

Early and late summer flowering shrubs like Hydrangea and Hibiscus should be pruned in late winter or early spring.

Excerpt from Late Bloomer: How to Garden with Comfort, Ease and Simplicity in the Second Half of Life by Jan Coppola Bills, St. Lynn’s Press, Fall 2016

Books make lovely gifts for gardeners! Order one for yourself and one for a friend here: http://ow.ly/FiG63071bdW

Happy Holidays!

Late Bloomer: How to Garden with Comfort, Ease and Simplicity

Late Bloomer: How to Garden with Comfort, Ease and Simplicity

 

 

9 thoughts on “When Pruning is Necessary

  • By Elaine - Reply

    Is this your opinion about roses, also? Everyone seems to prune them to the ground.

    • By Cathy M wilson - Reply

      You should prune most roses to keep them manageable and to promote flowering, at least where you want it. Climbing roses for example, they bloom on vertical shoots- so support shoots need to be pruned and braced horizontal as to promote vertical shoots and flowers. Many hybrids are similar and do well with a vigorous pruning which keeps them in a preferred & manageable size and you are able to prune out old growth without making it looks spindly. All that said, it also depends on the type of garden you have an what look you are going for. Cottage roses, if properly supported, can go a little ‘wild’ and just be lovely. I too, do not like pruning and have not done so – or at least enough, much to the detriment of some of my plants. This year, due to blight [brought in by insects]- I will have to do a very precise pruning, cleaning off my blades with every cut. Pruning is really necessary for many of today’s plantings. Not everything of course, but it is needed on many for the health of the plant, to promote fruiting or /and flowering, plus size management and growth habits. It is not however, needed on everything or to the degree it is typically done in many landscapes,

  • By how to get more followers on instagram - Reply

    I’m gone to say to my little brother, that he should also
    pay a visit this weblog on regular basis to take updated from latest
    information.

  • By sklep internetowy - Reply

    Wow, wonderful weblog layout! How lengthy have you been blogging
    for? you make blogging glance easy. The full look of your web site is fantastic, let
    alone the content material! You can see similar: najlepszy sklep and here najlepszy sklep

  • By Gdzvqb - Reply

    lipitor 20mg drug buy lipitor 10mg pill atorvastatin 10mg brand

  • By Zwifpc - Reply

    purchase cipro sale – buy bactrim 480mg online augmentin 625mg canada

  • By Nkudph - Reply

    cipro without prescription – buy septra no prescription augmentin 625mg brand

  • By Rlmzsa - Reply

    oral ciprofloxacin 500 mg – tinidazole 500mg over the counter erythromycin 500mg uk

  • By Lblrki - Reply

    buy generic flagyl – buy generic metronidazole purchase zithromax online cheap

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>