With Prudent pruning pays off Be tender for buds’ sake

WONDERING why some of your shrubs have already failed to flower this summer?

It may be your uncontrollable urge to “tidy” the garden is the problem.

You might have well- behaved, shapely borders but heavy-handed pruning, and trimming at the wrong time, won’t leave you much colour.

When you buy a plant you’ll find pruning advice on the care label.

If it doesn’t give any, you should presume the plant doesn’t need any – other than snips to tidy wayward shoots, get rid of damaged, diseased and dead wood or keep it in scale with the surroundings. This “renovation pruning” is always done when plants are dormant and the sap isn’t flowing so fast.

Observing plants when they are in flower will give you a clue as to the best time to trim for better blooms.

For example, flowers that appear early in the year on last year’s growth, old wood, such as forsythia, flowering currants, lilac and mock orange must be pruned soon after the flowers have faded. If you leave it until later in the season you’ll remove the new growth – and most of its flowering potential for the following year.

It’s not necessary to prune these every year. Probably every three or four will do. But if you lack space you can safely reduce the shrub by a third provided you follow up with a handful of Growmore per plant.

Make neat cuts, slightly angled to shed rainwater, for a tidy look. Shrubs such as buddleja that flower in summer on new season’s growth can get tall and leggy, with flowers way above eye level. It’s best to cut their stems back hard in early spring as leaves begin to open. You can be quite ruthless and cut the previous year’s growth to about two buds from the older, darker wood. Broom, heather and lavender also become leggy and bare at the base if not pruned occasionally. A light trim immediately after flowering is best.

If you cut into the old wood they rarely have the energy to re-shoot, no matter how much aftercare you give.

Similar treatment can be handed to less hardy shrubs such as cistus and ceanothus. You’ll find pruned plants give improved flowers the next year on compact, wind-resistant plants.