Prune your winter jasmine
Ruth gives her neglected shrub a thorough reduction
THE winter jasmine at the front of the house usually flowers fantastically in early spring but this year it wasn’t so good. It’s probably my fault, as I have neglected its pruning so it has been throwing out new growth instead of flowering and because it hasn’t been fed either, has run out of puff.
To compound matters, several of the new stems have arched to the ground and rooted, making new plants and sucking up what nutrients are available.
Luckily, winter jasmine can take the occasional hard prune even though the ideal is to keep them in shape each year. If yours is seriously overgrown and you are uncertain about a heavy trim, shape it bit by bit over a three-year period.
Do the work after the plant has flowered as it produces its zesty yellow blooms on growth created the previous year, and if you cut it back in autumn you will lose the budding growth.
I started by yanking up and cutting off the rooted growth, and then removed as much of the spindly and dead wood as possible before reducing healthy growth to a pair of buds.
It may not flower brilliantly next year because of the amount I removed, but will hopefully return to former glories the year after. As ever, I fed and mulched the plant well afterwards.