Now Is The Time To Prune Your Plants

Apr 22, 2021 83 Views

The temperatures haven’t been too bad at normal ground levels but still a little cool overall, but this is a good sign to me that after the rain we have had we will have a successful spring time bloom this year.

NOW is the time to prune your plants.

I have to go through this discussion with many people and customers, as their gardeners may prune in October or November or any month of the year. The facts are that gardens need to be pruned at the right time of year and correctly if you want to get the most from them. Too many times do I see bad decisions about the timing of pruning plants, which leads them either full of dead wood, not growing in as healthy a manner as possible, or simply cutting off flowers. A pure lack of understanding of plants on the whole.

Hibernation – Fundamental Laws of Nature

Around October as many of you will know and appreciate, temperatures can start to drop quite cold, and with the exception of a few plants that flower through this period the most plants and trees effectively go into hibernation, which is understandable as the lack of sunshine and cold temperatures make them lie dormant, in a stasis to help protect them. This is fundamental laws of nature. This is why everything bursts into life in the springtime including plants and animals.

How Do You Know When It Is Time To Prune?

Pruning in the winter simply stunts and slows growth, whereas pruning in the springtime encourages rapid growth. Some gardens may vary with their micro-climate, gardens that face entirely south may be a little ahead of those that face north or other orientations. The easy tell is when your plants start to re shoot, new stems of green and health. This means the plant is now successfully drawing sap, and that means that when you prune correctly (normally reducing the amount of stems on the plant) there is now a higher percentage of energy going into those stems, resulting in an explosion of growth.

Trimming v Pruning

It is acceptable to do some light trimming and tidying after summer as the plants may have excess growth, but trim is the word. Pruning should be reserved entirely for Springtime. As I said before, you don’t need to be an oracle of gardens and plants to understand the basic requirements for life. Nature tells us what to do and if you listen it will reward you.

Happy Gardening.

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