Pruning plants can be intimidating, yet many of our shrubs, trees and flowering perennials are very forgiving. But I’ll start with the advice I learned very early from a gardening mentor:
“Think twice, cut once”.
(This is akin to the amateur carpenter’s motto: "Measure twice, cut once. Measure once, curse twice.")
So let’s think about why to cut, aka, prune a plant. Pruning is done for health, safety, and beauty. Health of the plant, safety of the people and homes nearby, and the beauty of the plant. (By the way, I use the term ‘pruning’ to talk about selective cuts of individual branches/limbs etc. I use ‘shearing’ to describe an overall haircut, taking a few inches off the whole top or sides of foliage, as in shearing a hedge.)
Pruning decisions about health and safety are mostly objective, driven by plant culture requirements, the need to protect the plant from pests, and (for safety) the need to protect your vehicles and home and self from injury.
Beauty is always subjective. If I want my Forsythia to look like it’s sprouted a couple dozen rooster tails, and you want yours to look like a glowing compact yellow ball, that is just fine.
Why would you prune for health? You might prune to open up interior air circulation, as with boxwoods and shrub roses. Or to remove a dead or diseased limb, to keep problems from spreading to the rest of the plant. Or to keep limbs from crossing, rubbing on each other and creating a wound.
Safety mainly refers to the pruning of shrubs and trees, rather than flowers: removing limbs that are in the path of a walkway or that may rub against the gutters of a house.
As for shrubs, I have pruned my quince for shape and size, pruned my crape myrtle to remove damaged limbs and twigs, and in the case of a cherished but small dogwood, to remove limbs that keep hitting me in the head when I bend over to weed, or push the lawn mower. Last summer I thinned my Forsythia by about a third, removing some of the oldest stems, for rejuvenation.
On to flowers. Annuals typically don’t require much pruning so let's talk about perennial flowers.
In the late winter or early spring (February, March here), I cut back the old leaves of perennials/ornamental grasses (e.g., monkey grasses, prairie grasses like miscanthus and pennisetums), as well as the previous year’s leaves of hellebores. If I kept roses, I would prune climbing roses now as well. In summer another helpful cut for perennials is “deadheading” which is snipping off the fading blooms (of roses, coneflowers, phlox, catmint, verbena, daisies, etc). This keeps them from going to seed, and therefore, producing more flower blooms.
A little more info at:
http://www.hortmag.com/weekly-tips/cultivation/all-about-deadheading-flowers
Then I cut back the fading leaves of many perennials in the late autumn to tidy up the garden.
Simple pruning rules for shrubs -
Think twice, cut once.
Never remove more than 1/3 of a shrub when pruning. It can cause the plant a shock, since plants rely on their leaves for nutrition, photosynthesis, and respiration.
If you’re unsure, never prune anything harshly from July to December (in middle Tennessee)
For shrubs that flower once a year (Forsythia, snowball, quince) prune shrubs immediately after flowering. Some shrubs are repeat bloomers, like butterfly bush (Buddleia) and some Spireas; you can prune or shear them lightly after their first bloom, and they will come back with another round of blooms.
Use a decent quality sharp tool. Use the right size tool; if you are struggling to cut a thick stem with your hand pruners, move up to the next size tool, loppers. If a limb or branch is too thick for the loppers, use a pruning saw. You can keep your blades sharp by using a bastard file or diamond file, or take them to a hardware store for sharpening.
NOW:
Prune Crape Myrtles now up through about Easter. Prune Forsythia after the blooms are gone. Cut back winter beaten Helleborus (Lenten Rose) leaves.
Shrubs which can you prune almost any time of year: Privet hedge, yews, hollies, Euonymous, red tip Photinia. But again, use some discretion. If it’s 95 degrees and you cut a plant in half….it may not survive.
It's the first day of Spring, get out there, and think twice.
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