How to Properly Prune Shrubs
Shrubs can serve a variety of purposes, adding beauty to your yard while providing privacy from neighbors. It's easy to forget about your garden shrubs until they're looking overgrown and leggy. Most shrubs fall into two categories: evergreen shrubs or flowering shrubs. Evergreen shrubs requite little care, but flowering shrubs should be pruned annually to maintain a neat appearance. You'll want to prune flowering shrubs after they flower for the season. Evergreen shrubs can be pruned in springtime when you perform other yard work. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Inspect the branches of your shrub for signs of dead, diseased or damaged wood. These pieces will need to be removed for the overall health of the shrub. While you should check for them every time you prune, you can remove dead or damaged branches whenever you notice them.
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Clip away dead or diseased branches at the base. Discard all clippings, and disinfect your pruning tools before continuing.
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Determine how much of the foliage you want to trim back. Evergreen shrubs have a natural shape, usually looking either conical or round. You'll want to maintain the natural shape, but trim new growth back by several inches. With flowering shrubs, trimming helps produce flowering branches and keeps the plant looking neat.
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Remove older woody branches of flowering shrubs. These branches typically do not produce flowers. Cutting them off at the base will help thin out the shrub's canopy and can allow you to cut off a lot of growth without changing the outward appearance of your shrub.
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Remove one-third of older wood on neglected flowering shrubs in the late wintertime. This will encourage new growth and is the best way to get an old shrub looking neat.
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Tips & Warnings
Most evergreen shrubs require little pruning and may not need to be trimmed annually. Flowering shrubs should be trimmed annually, since they do not flower on older wood.
