LoppersUsing correct pruning techniques ensures that shrubs are green from top to bottom. If you’ve ever had a problem with a shrub dying from the ground up, it’s because not enough light is reaching the bottom leaves of the plant. That’s 100 percent correctable with the right pruning technique. Knowing when to prune also ensures that you won’t cut off the flowers before the shrubs bloom.
What You’ll Need
Loppers
Hand pruners
Safety glasses
Instant Green Thumb
Do you have hydrangeas that won’t bloom? How about azaleas that only bloom at the bottom? What about viburnums that have green leaves, but no flowers? Chances are, you’re pruning the shrub at the wrong time. Prune spring-blooming shrubs such as azaleas and forsythias right after they finish blooming. Prune summer-blooming shrubs such as hydrangeas and bluebeard after they start growing in the spring. Never prune in the fall.
Pruning Techniques
Reducing Shrub Size
Not every shrub that is too big for its britches needs to be pruned into a square or a ball. Hedges have their place, but so do beautiful, natural-looking shrubs. Azaleas are an example of this. To prune azaleas, hydrangeas, and other shrubs that grow quite large, put away the hedge trimmers and get out the hand pruners (for branches close to you) and long-handled loppers (for branches that are farther back in the shrub). Then, just cut the branches back as far as you want, making sure to cut back to a leaf. Stagger the heights of cut branches to give the appearance of natural growth. It’s that simple!
When trimming a hedge or an individual shrub, the key is to make sure that the bottom of the shrub sticks out just a little bit farther than the top of the shrub. This ensures that light reaches the very bottom of the plant. To trim a hedge, hold the hedge shears (manual or electric) at a slight angle with the handles closer to your body and the tips of the shears farther away. You want a slight “pyramid” edge to the hedge when you’re done pruning.
Maintaining a Hedge
Maintain the nice, even lines of the hedge by looking for sprouts sticking up from the hedge. Some plants require a full trim every year, but others can just be cleaned up periodically. Use hand pruners to remove sprouts that have grown faster and stick out farther than the rest of the shrub branches. Always remember to cut back to a leaf!
Roses are shrubs, too, so rose pruning techniques can be used to prune other shrubs. Always cut a rose stem back to a leaf. Plants grow from buds nestled between the stem and the leaf. If you cut a stem two or three inches out from a leaf, you’ll have ugly, bare stem hanging out. Whenever you prune, you can’t go wrong if you cut back to a leaf.
Hybrid tea roses are a bit more complicated to prune, but you can’t go wrong with them if you cut old (more than three years) canes (branches) all the way to the ground, and always prune the branches back to a bud on the outward-facing side of the plant.
