Overgrown shrubs in your home garden can be a matter of concern. Regardless of what kind of bushes you are dealing with, knowing how to prune effectively with garden pruning shears is an art.
Whether a hydrangea is obstructing your path, or a rhododendron is creating a mess on your window, these effective tips will make gardening a lot easier.
1. How to Get Started Pruning
The first task is to clear the damaged and dead branches away. A garden pruning shears saw or lopper with sharp edges should be ideal for this. If the tools do not make a clear-cut and leave ragged edges, you should not use them and instead consider investing in a replacement.
Bypass pruning shears can cut branches of thickness amounting to 1 ½ inches, but for bigger diameters, you might need a wood saw, powered chainsaw or a metal hacksaw.
2. Where Should You Cut?
The idea is to cut the branches closest to a junction, the best of which is a branch collar – the point where the branches meet the trunk. The collar is ideal because there are lots of growth cells near it and if you cut in that area, the shrub’s growth will not be threatened.
The rule of thumb is to cut the branches 45 degrees slant with garden scissors. It helps the plant to shed water more effectively, saving it from fungus and therefore diseases.
3. Shrub Pruning —”Heading Back”
The “heading back” technique is ideal for shrubs. You will have to use your sight and find the tallest major or main branch.
Then, follow this along to find where the main or major branch meets a relatively lower and upward-looking side branch.
You have to prune the main branch, cutting it off just above the relatively smaller one. Carry on with the process for all main shrub branches with garden clippers. You might need to move across the path or go back and forth to see how the pruning is shaping the tree.
Cut the branches a bit lower than what you think is comfortable. The new branches will grow a bit higher over the next 6 months or so.
4. Doing Major Overhauls
In case there’s a major overhaul, you cannot use a garden clipper. You must remove more than 10 feet and use a chainsaw for the main trunks. Remember to remove only one-third of the total height for every pass, to avoid an accident.
Needled Evergreens
Needled evergreen shrubs, such as Junipers, are good for pruning in early spring. People cut them during holiday season in the late autumn or very early winter, which typically does not affect their growth very much if done within limits.
To reduce the overall height of shrubbery, prune again with garden scissors when fresh growth emerges after the previous cut.
Cutting below green growth may cause a branch to never sprout again. It is important to note that the dormant buds of hemlock, yew, and arborvitae produce new growth on old wood. However, juniper, pine, spruce, and fir do not form new buds on old wood.
Some Deciduous Examples
For fan-shaped and/or “vase-shaped” deciduous shrubs—such as forsythia, bushy roses and lilacs—all branches should be pruned down one third each year.
However, do not ignore the natural shape everyone looks for while pruning deciduous shrubs, like Forsythia. These grow naturally and eventually form a vase shape. You should not destroy it just for the sake of using your garden scissors.
5. Foundation Plant Pruning
If any branches of foundation plant bushes are rubbing against a wall, prune it. Look for eight to 12 inches of ground clearance and don’t worry about its visibility. This helps back and interior branches get more air and sunlight, leading to a better, healthier, and better-looking bush.
Is Painting Needed?
If you are thinking of using a tree paint or household wax, you should remember that an angled cut that is perfect and done at the most appropriate time will help each bush to safely heal without any threat of damage from pests, frost, or disease.
6. Other Important Pruning Tips
The ultimate result of pruning appropriately is a plant that looks better and healthier – these are very strict guidelines for effective pruning, with or without bypass pruning shears.
The Safety Angle
Branches with low-growth that impede a passing vehicle or hide oncoming traffic should be pruned.
Split and/or broken branches with a probability of coming or breaking down, and whip-like low-hanging branches that contain thorns, should also be cut for the safety of passersbys and you.
Using the Growth
Some shrubs turn into small multiple-trunked trees when their lower limbs are removed. You can use this to avoid digging the shrub out and re-planting some others.
Directing Growth
Pruning affects the direction of the branch’s growth: When you cut it, you stop its growth in the natural direction and divert the growth to another direction.
This must be remembered while trimming young trees with bypass pruning shears to let them grow stronger.
Cut the Undesirable Growth Away
Undesired growth should be pruned periodically. The wayward branches, suckers (the stems coming out of the roots), thin growth, and water sprouts (upwardly shoots growing up from the trunks and main branches) should also be cut.
Plant Health is Important
Diseased, pest-ridden, dead, or rubbing branches should be removed to keep the plant health intact.
Creating Particular Shapes
Pruning a set of closely-planted shrubs as one unit for getting a hedge shape and pruning to get fanciful shapes of trees and shrubs are popular, too.
Getting More Fruits and Flowers
Fruit trees and flowering plants may be pruned for better yield. It may also help improve the quality of production. The spent flowers should be pruned away from roses during their entire bloom time cycle. Small and precise pruning of fruit trees is necessary for the dormant season too.
Such pruning may consume time and seem like a tedious chore, but this pays off via healthy and lavish blooms with high yield of fruits in the harvest season.
When to Prune with Garden Pruning Shears
Pruning with wrong technique or at an inappropriate time may sacrifice flowers and/or fruit in that same year. The main rule is to prune spring-flowering plants, shrubs, and trees right after their flowers fade.
Summer-blooming plants, trees, and shrubbery should be pruned at the start of spring or winter with the start of new growth. Pruning in late summer is ideal in places where winter is harsh, as it encourages fresh growth that hardens only before the cold starts to settles in.
Spring Pruning
Deciduous trees and many other shrubs should be pruned with bypass pruning shears at the start of spring or during late winter, before their dormancy breaks. As heavy frosts start to settle in, the chances of the plants suffering cold damage won’t be there during pruning.
Broken and awkward-looking branches of deciduous plants are bare to spot and prune to direct their growth. As the growing season approaches, the pruning will, in fact, stimulate fresh growth in the desired direction.
It’s ideal to wait until a plant’s flowering recedes before pruning. It is important to note whether the flowering is produced on old or new branches, as well.
For trees that flower on previous year’s wood, such as forsythia, some other flowering trees (peach, plum), and flowering quince, flowers may not bloom if pruning is held off until just before plants become dormant.
Cinquefoil and some other plants that flower on new growth occurring in spring, however, can be safely pruned while they are dormant.
Summer Pruning
The late summers are another ideal time to carry out garden shears pruning. Thinning plants in late summer lets gardeners see the needed thinning required when the branches remain in thick foliage.
With growth being slower in late summer, pruning usually won’t incite new growth, which is good if you are looking for thinning.
Summer pruning should not be done within one month of the first frost, as it may hamper the pruned branches.
Pruning Evergreens
Evergreen plants and shrubs do not change leaves but they do approach a dormant-like state during winters. Examples of such trees include broadleaf evergreens (camellia and boxwood) and conifers, such as pine and spruce.
Evergreens with broad leaves are best pruned in summers or during late dormancy periods. Garden shears pruning to preserve the flower buds is necessary for broad-leaved evergreens.
Evergreens that flower on previous year’s wood should be pruned after bloom. For those that flower on new growth, garden clippers pruning should be done before bloom.
Most conifers are pruned with garden scissors in year two and three, so as to direct and control their basic shape; but later on, they are better left on their own. Too much pruning may destroy the conifers, leading to unhealthy and visually unappealing shrubs. This occurs when people tend to limit conifers’ growth to a confined location. However, some conifers—such as yew, arborvitae, and hemlock—do shear into hedges.
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