Garden Centre

Friday, April 4, 2008

April garden tasks – Sweeney Todd your shrubs!

A lot of plants benefit from a ‘trim’ this month to keep them tidy and encourage new growth for the summer. It’s a good time to get Cape fuchsias back into shape, taking growth back to strong sideshoots to encourage width and taking out central growth if the plant is getting overly congested. Winter jasmine should have finished glowering now and you can cut back the forward-facing growth and tie in the long shoots that are growing in the right direction so that the plant looks neat and puts on a good display of colour next winter.

This is also the time to really cut back some tougher shrubs of prolific growth. The repeat offender here is Buddleia davidii which should have lots of its old wood taken out to give space to the new growth and nearly always needs to have about a yard taken off the top! Other plants that benefit from a Sweeney are the dogwoods and willows that are grown for winter colour – I normally cut mine back in late February, as they get away very early on the south coast of the UK but if you live inland or to the north, you can probably leave this until late March or early April. These plants only give their glorious shades of red, glowing yellow or lime green on new growth, so you need to be drastic, cutting right down to a stubby base, about a food from the ground.

Buddleia courtesy of The Marmot

Labels: shrubs, spring pruning

The All Seasons Gardener at 12:03 AM 0 Comments

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