Pruning: The Complete Guide to When, How, and What to Prune
Pruning is essential to good plant maintenance. Whether you are growing trees, shrubs, climbers, or perennials, plants all around the garden need pruning throughout the growing year. Gardeners need to understand when, what, and how to prune to keep plants healthy and performing at their best.
Regular pruning at certain times of the year serves specific reasons. It can restrict the size, remove dead or damaged branches or stems, create a desirable shape, promote healthy growth, and encourage flowering and fruiting. Plants left to their own devices get unruly, flower only at the top of branches, and flop from being top-heavy with flowers.
For a beautiful garden and the best flowering displays or fruit crops, gardeners are equipped with essential pruning tools and trim at the right time of year. Knowing the right and wrong times to cut keeps plants healthy and vigorous, avoids disease, and rewards you with a thriving garden full of plants adorned with stunning displays to enjoy across the season.
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This pruning guide features general recommendations. For more in-depth information and specific pruning guidance for different plants, see each individual pruning article linked to in the paragraphs below.
When to Prune
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The best time to prune depends on each plant, the time of year, and whether it flowers or fruits on old or new growth. Pruning at the right time encourages a desirable response and helps the plant stay healthy.
Prune most shrubs during late winter to early spring. However, a key aspect of knowing when to prune shrubs is blooming time. Always prune spring-flowering shrubs after flowering, in late spring or early summer, and summer-flowering shrubs in late winter or early spring. This routine ensures you get the best flowering displays from both. Trim evergreen bushes lightly in spring and late summer to keep them neat and attractive.
The window for pruning deciduous trees also runs during dormancy, from late fall to early spring. Understanding when to prune trees makes pruning simpler, as you can see the structure when the leaves have dropped, and it helps the tree, as it copes best with trimming during dormancy. You can also trim evergreen trees in your yard in late winter or early spring.
If you wonder when to prune fruit trees, that same guidance applies to many popular ones, with apples and pears being pruned when dormant. The big difference is with stone fruit trees, such as cherries, plums, peaches, and apricots. These need summer pruning to reduce the risk of silver leaf and bacterial canker.
The best time to prune hedges depends on whether it is formal or informal, and deciduous or evergreen. Formal evergreen hedges are usually pruned twice during the growing season, often in spring and summer, while deciduous hedges can need trimming in spring and then in the fall. Check for nesting birds and avoid cutting hedges through summer until the chicks have left.
When pruning herbaceous perennial plants, gardeners have two choices. You can either cut perennials back in fall to tidy the garden, or leave them until spring, as old stems and seed heads can provide food for birds and shelter for wildlife over winter.
Around the garden, there are plants to prune in spring, summer, fall, and winter. However, never prune during extreme weather, such as intense heatwaves, severe frost, or drought, to avoid harming plants.
What to Prune
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All manner of plants around the garden need trimming, shaping, and dead or damaged material removed to keep them healthy. A good gardener needs to understand the species, its growth habits, and any potential issues to prune it properly.
Trees need minimal pruning, especially when mature. However, you may need to prune oak trees whose branches are growing too close to buildings or structures, prune a birch tree when low branches obstruct paths or driveways, or prune a Japanese maple tree every few years to keep it controlled in a smaller space. As trees can be a hazard during high winds or storms, routine pruning to keep them safe and healthy is a must.
Ornamental trees are pruned for structure and safety, but fruit trees are pruned for shape and fruit production. You need to prune an apple tree or prune a pear tree to allow light and air to reach the fruit and ripen it. In smaller gardens, you can prune a cherry tree regularly to keep it compact and make harvesting easier. Gardeners should prune a lemon tree and other citrus to remove weak growth and suckers so energy is focused on producing better fruit.
Shrubs carry a lot of responsibility for providing structure and bountiful blooms. They need pruning to maintain the ideal shape and encourage the best flowering performance.
In spring, you prune roses and prune butterfly bush – those shrubs that flower on new growth. When summer comes along, it is time to prune rhododendron, prune lilac, and prune philadelphus, along with other spring-flowering shrubs. You can prune hydrangeas during both of those windows – just be sure you know if yours flowers on old or new wood. In late summer, it is time to prune lavender.
Climbing plants need annual pruning to control their size. For example, you need to prune ivy and prune clematis to stop them growing too vigorously and spreading to areas you’d rather they didn’t, including blocking windows and even damaging guttering. Regular pruning also results in more blooms, so pruning climbing roses once a year and pruning wisteria twice a year rewards you with the best display of their glorious flowers.
Deciduous and evergreen hedges need pruning to keep them to the height and shape that you want. Left untouched, and you quickly end up with an overgrown hedge. If you have a very fast-growing hedge, you get a speedy barrier, but it needs controlling. So remember to prune privet hedges especially, as they can quickly get out of hand.
How to Prune
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A few general pruning principles apply across all plants. Whether you are cutting back shrubs or pruning fruit trees, the focus starts on removing the 3 Ds – dead, diseased, and damaged growth. This keeps the plant healthy. Removing weak, crossing, and unwanted growth then helps open up the center of the plant to improve air circulation and light penetration.
You can then start shaping the shrub or tree and encourage strong blooming. However, remember the one-third pruning rule and never remove more growth than that in one pruning session.
Gardeners must understand how to prune tree branches safely to prevent damaging mature trees. This includes not removing large branches in one cut. Instead, make a small cut in the underside of the branch a few inches above where you want to cut it back to. This stops tearing and splitting the bark. Cut the branch just up from that small incision, then remove the remaining section to the branch collar.
For safe, healthy trees, concentrate on removing the 3 Ds, then any crossing branches or low-hanging branches that cause an obstruction. Homeowners should get professionals for larger trees.
If you want to know how to prune hedges, cut them wider at the base than the top. This ensures light reaches the lower branches and they grow healthy. Start with the sides of the hedges, then cut the top. You can put a line in place to get a crisp formal edge. If you are cutting an overgrown hedge, do it in stages rather than all at once, which can stress it.
What to Use to Prune
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Pruners are essential gardening tools that get a lot of use over the season. To do the full range of pruning needed around the garden, you need a few key tools to cut different sizes of stems and branches.
The most used tool is a pair of pruning shears. These become your go-to tool for pruning perennials and shrubs where the stems are smaller than an inch thick.
When you buy pruners, a key decision is between bypass or anvil pruners. Bypass pruners are the most common and give the cleanest cuts. They should be the first choice, as they work for a wide range of stems and branches, while anvil pruners are better suited for dead wood.
A pair of loppers is required for larger stems or smaller branches between one and two inches thick. Use standard bypass loppers for the lower half of that bracket, as ratchet loppers are more effective closer to the two-inch mark. For branches over two inches thick, you need a pruning saw.
For pruning hedges, have a set of hedge shears in the shed. These have long handles and blades to slice through the green growth of hedges and shape topiary. They can also be used for quickly trimming herbaceous perennials.
Alternatively, a mechanical hedge trimmer can save time and physical effort when cutting hedges. These can be battery, electric or petrol, and also come in extendable models to cut taller hedges.
These are our top six pruning tools, but check out the individual guides for each type of tool to find more specific recommendations.
The Felco F2 pruning shear is a professional-grade tool with a hardened, ultra-sharp carbon steel cutting blade for cutting branches up to one inch thick.
A pair of durable bypass loppers with a precision-ground steel blade that will smoothly cut stems and branches up to 1-1/2 inches thick.
A pair of strong loppers with a dual-compound metal lever that reduces the effort needed to cut by 35%. They can cut branches up to 1¾-inches thick.
Corona Razortooth Pruning Saw
A pruning saw with three-sided razor teeth for cutting through large tree branches efficiently. An ergonomically designed handle ensures it is comfortable to use.
ARS HS-KR1000 Hedge Shears
A pair of sharp hedge shears with Japanese steel blades. It has slightly curved handles and blades for an efficient cutting angle and weighs just 780 grams.
Black+decker Pole Hedge Trimmer
This cordless hedge trimmer has an 18-inch cutting blade and is adjustable up to 6-1/2 feet in length. It comes with a battery and charger.
What Not to Prune
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There are always rules to follow, and that means there are pruning mistakes to avoid. These primarily focus on timing, as pruning at the wrong time of year affects flowering and fruiting, and the plant’s overall health.
For example, plants not to prune in spring are mainly spring-flowering shrubs. Trim them then, and you’ll cut off this year’s buds and decimate the blooms. Summer follows the same principle, as plants not to prune in summer are those that reach their flowering peak at that time of year.
However, it is also a tree pruning mistake to cut oaks, elms, and maples in summer, as it leaves them vulnerable to pests and fatal disease. At other times of the year, you also want to avoid pruning trees during extreme heat, cold, or periods of drought.
Gardeners should avoid pruning ornamental and fruit trees and shrubs in late summer or early fall. This prompts the plant to put out a new flush of tender, soft growth. These stems don’t harden off before winter and get damaged by frosts, which stresses the tree and leaves it at risk.
It is essential to look after your tools. Well-maintained pruning tools are easier to use, last longer, and make cleaner cuts that plants heal faster. Before any trimming, clean your pruning shears if they are clogged with dirt or debris and sharpen them if needed, so they perform at their best.
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