Stroll down your street, and you will see flowering shrubs in a multitude of different forms and shapes. But if you’re a newbie gardener, as most people are due covid-19, you may be wondering if you really need to prune your flowering shrubs and when to do it. Fortunately, less is usually more when pruning flowering shrubs. Here’s why you should do it and what you should do.
Why You Should Prune Your Flowering Shrubs
In a nutshell, proper pruning reduces pests, promotes flowering, and contributes to your shrub’s overall health while maintaining an aesthetically pleasing shape. It could also help keep shrubs at their desired size, but this could, in some cases, result in excessive pruning. While shrubs could thrive without pruning, proper pruning in a landscaped garden would help ensure that they stay attractive and healthy. Over time, their branches will become unproductive and woody.
Removing these branches will aid in stimulating new growth that will produce more flowers. Additionally, it will help improve air circulation and eliminate pests inside old wood, crucial for shrub health.
When You Should Prune Your Flowering Shrubs
The timing will essentially be dependent on the season your shrubs are in. For instance, shrubs that flower during early spring grow flowers on wood produced last year. This means that pruning them during late spring, right after they’ve finished blooming, is best.
Waiting for too long will decrease flower growth for the next year. Also, shrubs that flower during summer grow flowers on fresh growth, so you should prune them during early spring to promote fresh growth.
How to Prune Your Flowering Shrubs
Heading Technique
This entails removing each wayward branch that is too long by cutting them back to your desired height. Heading can be done by using a hand pruner, and it’s an excellent method for people looking for that subtly manicured flowering shrub look. In most cases, this type of pruning is performed for reducing the shrub’s size while keeping its more natural shape.
Rejuvenation Technique
This pruning technique rejuvenates flowering shrubs by getting rid of all growth to just one foot from the soil. Although this technique is considered severe since it will leave your shrub with bare and short branches shooting up from the soil, fresh growth will appear after a couple of weeks and grow into gorgeous shrubs.
Certain flowering shrubs bloom in the same year as well. However, this will depend on the shrub’s species, such that slow-growing species might not flower again in the same year. Also, while most flowering shrubs benefit from rejuvenation, not all of them do, so check with your local horticulture expert.
You can use a hedge trimmer or pruning saw for the rejuvenation technique. Since it could be difficult to access the interior branches with a pruning saw, you can use the hedge trimmer for removing the outer branches so you can access the interior ones more easily. Rejuvenation can be performed every three years to help keep your shrubs at a more manageable and healthy size
Thinning Technique
This pruning method entails pruning about 1/3 of the oldest branches right at the shrub’s base yearly. A pruning saw is best for thinning since it could reach underneath the plant. It can likewise be used for pruning thick branches. This method is also great for those who want their shrubs to retain their natural shape but still look somewhat structured.
Armed with ample knowledge of proper pruning techniques for your flowering shrubs, you will be assured of a landscape that you’ll enjoy looking at for many years to come.
