How to Prune a Scotch Heather

Always wondered how to prune your Scotch Heather? Prune after bloom for a compact and attractive plant.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Heather
• Pruning or Hedging shears

1. Scotch Heather or Calluna are fantastic for year-round interest – so many of them come out with interesting colored new growth or turn a flame or bronze color in winter, and in summer we get a colorful bloom. They are a low-maintenance plant, but they do need to be pruned once a year after blooming (in fall) to stay compact and pretty.

2. 
    
   Dead Blossoms on Scotch Heather by Jacki-Dee

   If you don't remove their spent blossoms, Calluna will put out new growth at their tip, and will lose their foliage on the part of the stem where they had flowers, so you end up with a bare stem with a funny-looking tuft of foliage at the top

3. Cut the stem to just below where the flowers were. You can see in the picture the dead flowers, so cut just below them, to green foliage. You may be cutting off 6-10" of stem.

4. You can do this with your pruning shears, or with handheld hedging shears if you prefer. Callunas don't mind being hedged, as long as you always cut into green growth and never into bare brown wood.

5. Callunas spring back from pruning very quickly and will look great in about two months. They grow back much bushier and healthier if they are pruned yearly after bloom.

Tips & Warnings

• Do use hedging shears to make this an efficient task.
• Do cut to green foliage, just below the dead flowers
• Do trim in late summer, fall, or early winter for best result.
• Never cut to brown, bare wood

Resources

• Video Tutorial - How To Prune Heaths and Heathers