Basic Concepts of Good Free Pruning
Free pruning is a dying art in the landscape industry because most new landscapers are not trained in doing it. Free pruning correctly also takes a longer amount of time which most customers don’t want to pay for. Free pruning is when you look at each plant individually to see what it needs rather than treating all plants the same and hedge clipping or using a chain saw!
Before you start your spring pruning, let me remotely take those hedge clippers from your grip and give you a pair of sharp pruners, loppers and a folding pocket pruning saw. Let’s review what you are trying to accomplish and the best way to do it.
Try to Decide…
1. What shape do I want the plant?
Jap maple is tough to prune
2. Does it naturally grow like a ball, or is it loose and natural? Do you want it espaliered or tall and thin?
Espaliered ‘Little Gem’ magnolia
3. How big is the space around it. Do you need to cut it off your house or off a pathway?
4. What time of the year is the best time to prune a particular plant?
5. How big do you want the plant to be after a year?
6. Are your tools sharp and making clean cuts?
Go ahead and start
1. Prune flowering summer shrubs in early spring. Prune spring flower shrubs after they bloom in early summer.
Limelight before pruning
Limelight final pruning
2. Prune all dead branches first. The plant thinks they are alive and keeps sending energy to that branch to revive it. This takes away from the formation of strong stems, leaves and flowers.
Dead (black wood in viburnum)
3. Prune out branches that grow towards the center of the plant. You want the stems growing outward so they won’t strangle each other or graft together. You can do this a lot with roses.
Roses before pruning
Rose pruned correctly in early spring
4. Try not to remove more than 1/3 of plant each year. More than that really shocks the plant.
5. Wherever you cut once, the plant branches into 2 stems. If you cut the same spot each year that area can get tufty.
6. If you want to prune a blooming plant shorter that is fine, you will have more blooms but smaller flowers.
Keep branches off house
Althea pruned sort in spring. Lots of smaller blooms.
7. Some plants bloom on only 2 year old wood like Nikko hydrangeas and snowball viburnum. Cut back every other stem shorter than another so that you have some flowers each year.
Boxwoods
How dense is your boxwood? Stick your hand inside. Are there only leaves at the top and all the rest below the leaves are woody stems. Time to prune if it is.
For boxwoods with your hand inside the plant, cut stems anywhere from 2-5″ here and there. You will make evenly spaced holes in the bush. The holes really don’t show because they are uniform holes throughout the plant.
Prune anything shape you want to shape outside layer of the plant. You can prune the boxwood to the shape you want (round or overall), but be sure you use sharp bi-pass pruners.
Dead inside boxwoods
Free prune in 'pockets' clip out snips here and there
Boxwoods with holes in them are much lighter
It is important that you do these correctly, or ask your yard service to do pruning using these guidelines. Fell free to direct them. Landscapers are not trained well on these guidelines anymore.
Christie lives in Manakin Sabot , Virginia where she manages a 3 acre garden. Her blogs are written from her 35 years as a personal and professional gardener.
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