How to prune anything

Are you less adept at pruning bushes than you are at tying your shoes? When you pick up a pair of shears, to people make jokes about stopping you before you kill again? Are you willing to keep 3 basic ideas in mind? If you answered yes to most of these questions, then you might need to read this article.<br />

Pruning is not tough. You can prune almost any woody plant safely, with little risk of damaging the plant by keeping a couple of rules in mind. I'll tell you what's involved in just a moment, but first I'd like to tell you what you can learn to prune from this article.

You can prune pretty much any woody plant, deciduous or evergreen, in US, Canada, or Mexico, including Alaska, Hawaii, Pueto Rico, and anywhere else that has woody plants.

I'm not going to get into the specifics of how to prune each plant. I'm going to make a lot of glittering generalities. This applies to most plants found in most yards. If you're curious how to prune an individual plant, I suggest you contact a local nursery for specific advice.

These basic rules apply to pretty much every woody plant that produces new growth yearly. The results you can expect to see will be largely consistent across different kinds of plants. It won't matter too much whether that plant flowers or not.

The most common exceptions are if a plant flowers on 2nd year growth, instead of 1st year growth. To understand the difference, consider a rose bush: it puts out new leaves and new shoots and then a few weeks later puts flowers on those leaves and stems.

Where as raspberry bushes are a little trickier: they put out new leaves and shoots but they won't produce any flowers until the next growing season. Put differently, on a raspberry bush, any flowers that are produced this year came only from last year's new growth.

Most woody plants are 1st year bloomers. If you've got a 2nd year bloomer, consult Your Local Horticultural Professional.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Clippers or shears.
• Hand saw (optional and for heavy duty work only)

1. Remove any dead wood. When you trim a dead branch, cut as close as you can to the live branch.

2. Remove any crossing or touching branches.

3. Now, if you want to, shape your plant.

Tips & Warnings

• I like my Felco clippers, but some people swear by Fiskars. Don't buy expensive clippers if you don't need them.
• Taking off dead and touching stuff is all most plants really need, and they really like it.
• If a plant has been neglected for a few years, removing the dead and touching stuff can make it really take off!
• DO NOT PRUNE WHEN PLANTS ARE STRESSED UNLESS YOU HAVE TO. Pruning a plant places it under additional stress, so don't make its life harder than you need to.
• Safe times to prune: anytime but summer and early fall. Spring, winter, middle to late fall - all of those are excellent times. But during summer and early fall, plants are often under stress from drought.
• If you're not sure what you're doing, play it safe and don't take off anything that isn't dead or touching.
• If you're pruning roses, don't remove anything thicker than a pencil unless you have to. Roses store nutrients in their thicker canes, and removing too many canes can really weaken a plant.
• If you're doing a 'heavy prune' and taking off a lot of plant material, consider doing it in stages. Most plants really don't appreciate being whacked back. An established plant will be able to recover, but it won't be happy in the mean time. If you can, divide the plant into 3 equal sections, and cut one section back per year.