TEN ESSENTIAL PRUNING TIPS
Do It Now (or Soon, Usually)
An ideal time to prune most trees and shrubs is just as their buds are swelling, which is just about now here on my farmden. Leafless stems make it easy to see where to cut, dead stems make their presence known, and with coldest weather past chances for cold damage near cuts are minimized. Warmer spring weather also promotes rapid healing of cuts.
Whole books have been written about pruning (I even wrote one!: THE PRUNING BOOK), yet the essence of pruning can be distilled into a few general pointers. The ten listed below will not result in an expert pruning job, but offer sufficient guidance to keep you and your plants reasonably happy.
1. Don’t cut unless you have a clear reason to do so. Trees and shrubs vary in their needs for pruning, from, for example, Japanese maple and witch hazel, which need no regular pruning, to butterfly bush and lilac, which need to be pruned every year to look their best.
Japanese maple’s rarely need pruning
