Hint and Tips for Pruning Trees and Bushes
Hint and Tips for Pruning Trees and Bushes
Pruning and trimming a bush or tree will help it stay healthier. In fact, many bushes and trees will start growing like crazy after they’ve been pruned well, and if they produce flowers you may find that you’re getting many more blooms than usual after a trim too.
Trimming is important for the bush or tree’s health and vitality, but it’s also very important for general safety too. Leaving a dead branch on a tree in a residential area can potentially invite harm to your house, your vehicles, or your friends and family because that dead branch will eventually fall to the ground… or whatever is underneath of it.
Many gardeners are afraid to trim or prune their own bushes though, because they’re worried that they may somehow damage or kill the plant they’re trying to trim. It is quite safe to do though, and as I’ve mentioned it’s actually needed for the health of your tree. So as long as you don’t prune too much off at any given time, your plants are quite fine with it. If you’re nervous, then just start very slowly with very small changes. Then as you become more at ease with the trimming and pruning process, you’ll feel better about doing as much as is needed.
Trimming and pruning should be done in the winter when the plants are dormant. I tend to do mine around January or February, right before the first blush of spring flowers comes out in my area.
The first thing you’ll need to do is cut away any dead branches from your bushes. If the bush has extensive dead parts though, it’s not usually good to cut them away all at once. Instead, do a little more each year over the course of several years.
If there are any areas of your bushes which look like they’re diseased or have major health problems, you generally want to cut these away as well so that the rest of your bush will not become infected.
Once dead or diseased branches are cut away, take a step back and look at the bush or tree in full. Determine if there are any branches which appear problematic or wrong in some way. There may be an errant branch which is growing the wrong direction for instance, or there may be new shoots which are encroaching into areas they’re not supposed to. Or you may simply want to neaten up the overall shape a little bit. If so, trim brances as needed for the desired results.
When pruning and trimming, be sure you’re using sharp cutting tools. Each cut you make should be clean and smooth. If your tools are not sharp then you’ll find yourself breaking and splitting remaining branch parts, and this causes stress and injury to the bush.
If you want your bushes to bush out a bit and become fuller looking, then make your pruning cuts just past a “knuckle” or “joint” in the branch. This usually causes new shoots to form on either side of the knuckle when the bush wakes up in the spring.
Once you’re finished pruning and trimming, keep an eye on the bushes when spring starts, because you might be astonished at just how fast they start growing and blooming!
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Great stuff I am really new to gardening and need all the help I can get before I kill everything out there. Many thanks
I am very new to gardening. Can I pruen my trees and rose bushes now Nov. 30 2009?
Ahhh, this is exactly what I was searching for – thanks!