Hi, this is Yolanda Vanveen, and in this segment, we're going to talk about pruning flowering shrubs. Now there's so many different types of flowering shrubs. There's rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias, you name it, ceanothus. It doesn't matter. There's so many different types. But by trimming your flowering shrubs, you can encourage new growth, more flowers, and they'll just look better. Because if you leave them alone, they kind of look like a Medusa. So the rule of thumb is to prune them right after they're done blooming. Most plants will set buds for the next year right after they bloom. So as long as you cut them back to a point where there's more leaves and more buds, they'll fill in for the next year. And it's easy to tell where they're at. You can also trim them back in the fall and the winter, when they're dormant. If they look really lanky or you want to cut dead branches out, then just trim it back at that point. But never trim more than one-third of your plant down at one time. If you move into a new house, or a new house to you, and there's huge shrubs that are just out of control everywhere, don't go in and just start whacking, because you'll lose those plants. But by working on a three year cycle; go one-third the first year, one-third the second year, and one-third the third year, and just trimming out one-third of the branches inside just to get more sun in the middle, you can save a lot of those shrubs, and eventually they will look really good. And you don't have to replace them, because we always want to cut down everything and replace it, when you'll find a lot of the times what you have in your yard is still really nice, and you can save it, and enjoy them for many more years.
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