Tough Love - Importance of Pruning for Shrubs & Trees

I know we all want to talk about Spring planting and bed and lawn preparations, but Erika just gave me a magazine article on pruning shrubs & trees. The topic is related to an earlier post on Erika's Forsythia bushes (coming soon, I hope). She implemented the tips from this article and her bushes are growing very well. The article is "Tough Love" by Liz Primeau in Canadian Gardening, April 1997, 26-27. (Don't expect perfect citation style here!) I want to get the information down so we'll have it handy when the time comes.

Points to consider:

• know when to prune and what your goal is
• know the shrubs natural shape – rounded, arching, vase-shaped
• rejuvenate by carefully removing dead wood to encourage growth
• younger wood is resistant to disease and more productive than older wood

Prune early-flowering shrubs like Forsythia soon after the flowers fade as they bloom on wood produced the year before:

• don’t remove more than 1/3 or could damage the shrub
• identify and remove dead or diseased branches first, right at ground level
• make cuts close to root level, but not so close to damage branches you want to keep

Prune to carefully open the center of the plant so light can reach the inside:

• remove crossing or rubbing branches
• where you make the cut on a branch can affect its future growth – cut just above a bud node
• trim the tips of the remaining branches, cutting just above an outward-growing bud
• trim just enough to reform the natural shape
• look for extremely long branches, or high-arching or low-drooping ones

When pruning is complete, fertilize with blood meal – promotes bud-growth for the following year.

Tools for woody shrubs:

• 24” (60 cm) lopper (for getting inside)
• curved pruning saw (for thick branches)
• sharp secateurs
• leather-palmed gloves with gauntlets

Node - where new branches erupt
Secateurs - small pruning shears with a spring that holds the handles open and a single blade that closes against a flat surface
Loppers - a type of scissors used for pruning twigs and small branches; usually operated with two hands, and with handles around 65 cm long to give good leverage; divided into 2 types: bypass and anvil