How do you prune young plants?

How do you prune young plants?

Pruning young plants helps promote strong branches and an attractive framework for your landscape. It also saves time and effort later on.

The amount of pruning you do depends on your goals. Severe cutting back stimulates vigorous growth; light pruning allows slower, more controlled growth.

Pruning Basics

Pruning is one of the most important cultural practices for maintaining young plants. It involves both art and science, with pruning cuts that are well made having a positive impact on a plant’s overall health and appearance.

Pruning can be used for a variety of reasons, including training and keeping plants in useful or decorative shapes, removing dead, diseased, or wayward branches, and controlling the size or shape of mature trees and shrubs. There are many types of pruning, but the basic principles are often the same.

The amount of pruning a plant needs will vary, depending on the age and health of the tree or shrub and the plant species. The number of pruning cuts you can make in a season will also depend on the type of cut you are making, such as removal or reduction (Fig. 7).

When pruning young plants, it is critical to use a controlled method. For this reason, it is best to prune when a plant is still new and developing good structure, which will prevent large pruning wounds later on.

Typically, you want to avoid removing more than a third of the total crown of the plant in a single year. This one-third rule is helpful to keep in mind as you progress with your pruning skills.

Another important tip to remember when pruning is that each pruning cut affects the growth of the plant in some way. The goal of each cut should be to remove undesirable parts of the plant, such as broken or dead branches or weak stems. The plant must then close off each cut with a protective callus or scar tissue.

Once the plant has formed these tissues, it can grow and produce more healthy shoots in response to the pruning. In most cases, the wound will heal quickly and without a lot of decay.

For a beginner, it is best to start pruning early in the plant’s life cycle and gradually work up to larger, more dramatic pruning cuts. If you are unsure about the proper amount of pruning to do, it is a good idea to have your plant evaluated by a certified arborist before you begin to prune.

Spring Pruning

During spring, most plants are just beginning to bloom and grow. Pruning them too soon can slow growth, destroy flower buds, and even cause damage. So if you’re going to prune your young trees or shrubs, wait until late summer or fall.

This is especially true if you’re pruning fruit trees, like apple and pear, or evergreens, including yew, juniper and pine. These trees and shrubs are more susceptible to tree pests and diseases that are active in the spring. In addition, pruning in the growing season can create a wound that is more difficult to seal and is more likely to allow water to enter a cut.

When pruning younger woody plants, you want to encourage a balanced structure of stems and branches. For this reason, you should remove crossed or inward-growing stems and branches as much as possible.

It’s also a good idea to remove any “water sprouts” (shoots that grow straight up from the main branches of shrubs and trees). These can interfere with a plant’s growth pattern, blocking light and airflow and making it more prone to disease.

If you do have to prune young trees and shrubs, try to get in the habit of doing it annually. Doing so will keep them strong and healthy and give them a chance to establish their shape and size over time.

The best way to do this is to trim back each stem or branch to a bud that is about six inches above ground level. This will help to encourage new growth that will bolster the plant’s strength and vigor.

You can even take it a step further and thin the leaves of some shrubs to encourage growth. This is a great way to improve the health and beauty of some perennials, such as lilacs, sedums, and hydrangeas.

Another important consideration when pruning is that you should cut away any old wood. This helps to rejuvenate the plant by replacing it with new, healthier wood.

It’s also a good idea to lop off dead shoots and old, decaying branches as quickly as possible to avoid spreading diseases that are active at this time of year.

Summer Pruning

Young plants need pruning to promote strong branches and blooms. This can be done in summer or winter, depending on the plant.

For flowering shrubs and trees, the best time to prune is after they finish flowering. You want to remove all woody stems or branches that grew last year, but don’t prune out new growth from this year’s flowering.

If you wait too long after the plant has finished flowering, the stems or branches you prune out will be wood that will produce flowers next spring. This includes lilacs, forsythia, and some hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla, H. quercitfolia).

Roses and azaleas can be pruned in late summer or early fall, depending on their flowering season. Prune the main trunk or any other main branches back by about a third to provide room for growing new vigorous shoots from the base of the plant. You also want to shorten by about a third the long, weak shoots that bore flowers in the previous growing season.

You can also remove suckers and water sprouts that have emerged from the base of a tree or shrub. Pruning these out encourages the growth of strong, healthy branching to create a more attractive, open structure.

Fruit trees, too, can be pruned in summer. These should be pruned so that they have open centers and four or five strong branches around the center. You should also remove long, weak side branches that get weighed down by fruit and break.

This helps to keep them structurally sound and allows for easy picking. It also encourages bud growth for the following year’s blooms.

The ideal way to prune fruit trees is to remove broken or crooked branches, crossing or rubbing limbs, and dead or diseased limbs. This helps the tree create a sturdy, stocky structure and prevents them from breaking during storms.

Another good idea is to pin (or pinch) long, weak side shoots as they emerge from the base of the plant. This is particularly important for trees that have a tendency to grow rapidly like apple and peach trees.

Fall Pruning

Fall is the perfect time to prune young plants. It’s not only easy and effective, it’s also a great way to make sure your trees and shrubs are healthy and looking their best for next year.

You can also use this season to trim perennials, mulch your lawn and rake. Raking will help to keep the soil from freezing and mulching can provide nutrients for your plants’ roots.

Pruning young plants encourages growth that is more robust and strong. This makes it easier for the plant to recover in the spring.

Another advantage of pruning in the fall is that limbs are lighter and more accessible. This is because as plants prepare for winter, they stop producing chlorophyll and focus their energy on moving life-giving sugars from the leaves to the roots.

When you prune during this dormant period, it promotes the healthy growth of new limbs without causing too much damage to tender parts that will be more prone to cold injury in the coming season. This is especially important for fruit and ornamental trees and shrubs as these woody plants prepare to go dormant and are more liable to be damaged by frost.

Before you begin, take a walk around your yard and examine each tree and shrub. Look at their structure, see how they fit into your landscape and make a plan for every cut you will be making.

Once you have a clear idea of what the plant is trying to achieve, be sure each cut is in line with that goal. It may be useful to consult a gardening book or search online for inspiration.

Using the right tool for your task is crucial for getting the job done. Bypass pruners, loppers and extendable saws are all good choices for trimming and removing branches.

If you have a lot of limbs to trim, it’s a good idea to work in small, manageable bites to avoid damage to your landscape and to your hands. This is especially true of trees with branches that are too large or hard to reach by hand.