What to prune this month
➊ Fruit
On fruit trees, prune any branches that are crossing or rubbing. Cut back overly long or straggly branches to a bud to promote vigorous, multi-stemmed regrowth. Avoid pruning plums, apricots, peaches and cherries in winter as they suffer from the disease silverleaf, which infects through wounds made at this time of year.
With trained fruit, cut back any very weak shoots to encourage new growth in spring.
It’s also time to prune soft fruit. Cut back autumn-fruiting raspberries to the ground, removing all of last year’s canes. With redcurrants and gooseberries, remove any crossing growth to create an open goblet shape. Reduce the remaining growth by a third to form a strong framework of branches.
➋ Clematis
Large-flowered clematis hybrids can be lightly pruned now, cutting any weak stems back to healthy buds. Avoid heavy pruning, as this will remove the earliest buds. The simplest rule is if it flowers before June, do not prune.
With clematis that flowers in late summer and early autumn, prune in February, cutting back to 15-30cm from the ground.
➌ Shrubs
Buddleia, cornus, salix, Russian sage, Fuchsia magellanica and F. fulgens can all be cut right back in February, just like latesummer clematis. The harder they are pruned, the more they will flower. When you have finished pruning any tree or shrub, mulch it well with a good layer of garden compost or well-rotted manure.
➍ Bush and shrub roses
There is no mystery to pruning bush and shrub roses and there is practically nothing you can do that the plant will not recover from. First remove all damaged or crossing stems. Then cut back hard any stems that look too weak to carry flowers. Finally, remove any visibly old stems that are crowding the shrub. Most shrub roses do not need any other pruning, but can be reduced by a third to encourage early budding and a more compact shape. Hybrid teas, floribundas and China roses follow the same sort of remedial treatment, after which you should cut back all remaining healthy shoots by two-thirds.
Always prune these roses very hard immediately after planting to promote strong, healthy shoots from the base.
neighbours in the search for light. If these leading shoots are cut off, the side buds are stimulated and bushier growth results lower down on the plant. Roots also produce hormones that control their growth, and these are in an intimate balance with those made in the shoots.
The clearest effect of this is seen when you trim a hedge. Left unpruned it will be lank and straggly, but clipped regularly it will become increasingly twiggy and dense. Prune an overgrown buddleia hard and you will not get two or three strong shoots returning but a mass of fresh growth, though in time this will be suppressed by the leaders. So, regular winter pruning will retain the bushy shape and habit of the shrubs you wish to be dense. These tend to be those that carry flowers. The most common example of this type of shrub is a rose. Trim it back every February by one-third and you will establish a go od strong shrub bearing a mass of flowers. Leave it unpruned and you will have a few woody stems with weak growth and a fraction of the flowers.
If you’re pruning flowering shrubs, it is important to know when the flowers are produced. As a rule, plants that bloom in the first half of the year, such as springflowering clematis, lilac, chaenomeles or daphne, do so on wood that has grown in the previous growing season – so, March to September of last year. The time to cut back these plants is immediately after flowering to give the new growth maximum time to mature and form flowering buds for next spring. Prune these in winter and you will have plenty of growth but no flowers.
Timing it right
The opposite holds true for plants that flower in the second half of the year. They form their buds on new growth, so you can afford to be ruthless in late winter, or even early spring, and cut them back hard, knowing that this will instigate healthy new shoots that will carry all the flowering buds.
I prune all my shrub roses in February, although the timing is not really very critical for these plants. If you live somewhere that is likely to have harsh frosts in late April or May, it is a good idea to leave pruning until mid-March to avoid losing fresh growth. If frosts after March are unlikely or mild, then roses can be pruned any time after the end of October. This applies to some clematis, buddleia and any other shrubs that flower in summer on fresh growth produced in spring. If pruned later they may flower later. This is as good or bad a thing as you want it to be.
The more I garden, the more I realise that success by any measurement always comes back to working with nature’s inevitable movement towards self-regulating balance. Therefore, to rejuvenate a hedge or shrub it is best to prune in winter, whereas if you want to encourage fresh, all-over growth, cut in summer (with the proviso you wait until young birds have left their nests).
The critical thing to remember about winter pruning is that the harder you cut, the more vigorous the regrowth. If carried out on plants that produce their flowers and subsequent fruit or berries on older wood, you will get a mass of growth but no flowers for a year or two. This is fine if it is part of a planned reinvigoration of an overgrown or tired plant, but it may not be the effect you intend. If you prune an apple tree hard each winter, it will make a mass of new growth but no flowers – and therefore no fruit.
This cycle is often perpetuated by pruning hard the following year to get rid of all that new fruitless growth, which, having lots of succulent sap, will attract aphids
Prune plants that flower in the second half of the year in winter, cutting them back hard
and fungal disease. Overzealous pruning can ruin fruit trees. The moral of the story is to wait, watch, notice when the flowers are formed and time your pruning accordingly the following year.
Because the hardest cuts produce the strongest growth, weak growth should be cut right back in winter rather than reducing strong shoots on a lop-sided shrub. This takes a lot of faith until you have seen it work.
So before you get your secateurs out, think about why you’re pruning the plant and how your actions will affect its natural tendencies. With the right cuts, you’ll reap the rewards. □