How To Prune Shrubs

I'd like to talk about how and why we prune shrubs. It is something that people seem to find a little bit confusing, sometimes even a little bit scary, but that's really no need. Shrubs create a structure in the garden and it is really important to keep it in shape with regular pruning.

Make sure your secateurs and loppers are clean and sharp. This way you'll get good, clean cuts with no snags. If you leave nasty snaggy bits on the branches, this can let diseases into the plant.

When you're pruning, make sure you cut close to the buds but not into them and always above. Plants like buddleia and forsythia can develop loads of hard old and dead wood which doesn't flower unless they are regularly pruned. So pruning them is particularly important.

Cut out any dead, diseased or crossing branches into the rest of the plant by about half. You can cut them back really quite hard or almost down to the ground. Some shrubs flower on the growth that put on the previous season.

So if you prune them too late in the year, you are cutting off all the flower buds for the next year so be aware and just check out on what point in time in the year your plants are flowering and whether they are flowering on new wood or old wood. Make sure you prune them directly after they flowered just to be safe. Things like forsythia and spirilla fall into this category.

Formative pruning is to keeping the plant in shape. It is keeping them nice and tight and not too snaggly. Things like forsythia and adesa tunica always benefit from a decent hair cut to keep them in good shape.

Most pruning though almost just involve removing dead wood and making sure the plant doesn't get overgrown with the space you have given it. That's just a few pieces of advice on how to keep your plants in good shape by pruning them properly.