WHAT TO PRUNE AND WHEN? HOW TO CUT BACK SHRUBS AT THE RIGHT TIME
IT’S easy lose a mass of flowers by pruning your prized shrubs at the wrong time, says HANNAH
STEPHENSON.
The general rule of thumb is that if your shrubs are deciduous and flower from late summer to autumn, then you can prune them in spring.
Before new spring growth starts, you can tidy up some woody plants, pruning broken stems which are rubbing up against each other, taking them back to a healthy bud or a main stem, and generally getting shrubs back into shape while they are leafless.
Plants including Buddleia davidii, potentilla, fuchsia, dogwood and wisteria can be tidied up now.
Buddleia davidii is a vigorous shrub, which comes back stronger, so cut the stems down to 20cm high.
Cut old wood back hard – it looks rougher and darker – to a low bud to encourage strong new growth which will bear flowers in the same year.
Wisteria needs pruning at the end of summer and again in late winter. Cut back last season’s long sideshoots to two or three buds. It’s also a good time to tidy the plant up generally, removing wispy growths, says the RHS.
Dogwood, which is grown for its colourful winter stems, can be cut down to the ground, re-energising the plant and encouraging many new colourful stems for next winter.
In milder areas, start to tidy up bush roses, removing thin shoots and dead, diseased and dying stems. But if the weather is really cold, wait until next month.
However, you should avoid pruning shrubs whose flowers are produced on shoots which developed in the previous growing season. The shoots should be cut as soon as they finish flowering, allowing new shoots to form.
These include spring and early summer-flowering shrubs such as forsythia, which blooms in March and April, weigela, kerria and philadelphus (mock orange).
And while it’s still cold enough, you can renewal-prune overgrown shrubs but don’t go mad. Just take some of the oldest branches so the plant will slowly rejuvenate.