Getting read for Spring - pruning
The rule of thumb for almost all plants with a woody stem is - If it flowers before mid-June, prune in spring after flowering, and if it flowers later, prune in late winter or early spring, but it’s always wise to check your gut feeling in a good plant manual.
Roses - Now is the time to prune all your roses. Hybrid teas, Floribunda, and English Roses can be pruned half-way down. Shrub roses prefer lighter pruning. Climbing roses are best pruned after their first big bloom in May. Dead wood, of course, can be removed at any time.
Perennial Flowers and Grasses - It’s time to prune right back hard to the crown the dried up stalks and flowers of last year’s growth. Russian Sage and Butterfly Bushes should be pruned back to eight or twelve inches from the ground. Ornamental grasses need to be cut to ground level to make way for new growth.
Spring flowering Shrubs - Remember to trim back Forsythia, Flowering Almond, Flowering Quince, Shrub Honeysuckle and Lilacs after they finish blooming. Then all their new growth will go into flowering wood for next year. To know where to prune, trace the stem down with your fingers until you reach a young side shoot with no dead flowers on it, and cut just above the point where it grows out of the main branch. Do this regularly each year and your spring shrubs will stay neater, and carry a lot more flowers than they otherwise would.
Pruning photograph by ktylerconk, used under a creative commons attribution licence
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