When it comes to pruning, there are plenty of reasons why you would look to do it within your garden. No matter what your reason is, you will want to ensure that you are doing it right every time. Failure to prune your plants properly can not only result in death but can result in permanent damage to your plants. Here is everything you need to know about pruning plants, from when you should do it, to how you should do it.

Can Help Contain Your Garden

One of the first reasons why people look to prune their plants is that they start to grow out of control. You might have designated areas in your garden for each plant, and you might find that one plant is starting to invade another’s space. Not only can this lead to a garden lacking aesthetics, but pieces of one plant can begin to choke and damage another. When this happens, you should get out your pruning shears and give the plant a quick snip.

With pruning, it is recommended that you use shears that are ship and can quickly snip through. If it does not come off in one clean snip, you are damaging the plant and hurting it. Once you have properly pruned your plants, you are now going to have to clean up all of the plant waste on the ground. Normally you would just throw these branches and twigs into the waste, however, with a garden shredder, you can shred them up into material that can be used by your garden. Finding the right shredder will not only make your life easier but will help your garden and these reviews from WhatShed talk about what you can expect from shredders on the market. If you are going to be pruning and snipping your plants often to contain your garden, you should definitely consider adding a shredder to your list of gardening tools.

Prune At the Right Time

It can be difficult to determine when to prune your plants, however you should be relieved to know that it is very rare that a plant itself will die from pruning at the wrong time. They might yield less fruit or flowers in the coming season, but they will recover in time. How do you know when the right time to prune is? A lot of it comes down to the type of plant you have. Fruit trees, like the Barbados Cherry for example, should be pruned in the late winter or early spring, while perennials should be pruned in the early spring. Get familiar with all of the plants and trees in your garden and find out how they are classified. Once you have done that, you can then go about researching when each one should be pruned. This will ensure that your garden stays looking fantastic and healthy.

What to Prune

The next thing to look at in regards to pruning, is what you should be removing from the plant. As mentioned earlier, if you have any invasive branches, those are definitely subject for pruning. But aside from that, what should you look to prune? If any part of the plant or tree is dead, you should simply remove it with a quick snip. This will give the chance for the plant to grow it back. Aside from that, you can also look to trim away any unwanted branches or stems.

With fruit trees, it is especially important that you prune branches and prune the right ones as well. If a branch has grown larger than two feet, it is most likely never going to bear fruit again. These are great for pruning, as they will add nothing to the tree. If you notice any diseased and dead branches, these aso have to go as well. Leaving these branches on the tree will divert energy away from fruit bearing ones. This means your fruits will not grow as large or as delicious as they normally would. Failure to prune a tree at the right time can have huge consequences on what the tree produces.

Transplanting

When the end of the season hits, you might want to move your plant from one area to a new one. If the plant has been there for a while, you might struggle to remove it as the roots have become rather deep and rigid. A way to get around this is by simply pruning the roots. When you dig the plant up, grab some loppers or some sharp prunes and cut the roots off. You will want to ensure that you don’t cut off all of their roots, but you will want to shorten them. Once that is done, it is time to transport them to their new home. Quickly move them to a new area filled with soil and bury it. If you have done this correctly, going into the new season your plant will be perfectly fine.

Grafting

Finally, pruning can be done if you want to graft with some of your plants. One plant might be dying and not producing, or simply not producing as well as another plant. A solution to this would be to take a piece of a successful plant and graft it onto the other. This is done by pruning a piece of one plant and then attaching it to the new one. This process can be difficult, so it is recommended that you research everything properly before attempting this. That being said, grafting is a great way to ensure that everything in your garden is growing properly.

This is everything that you need to know about pruning plants in your garden. As long as you are cutting it off in one quick swoop, you should not have to worry about damaging your plant in any way. When it comes to when to prune, make sure you have done your research and also analyzed your plants. Sometimes your plants might be ready for pruning slightly earlier than the given timeline. Keep your garden in line and keep your plants healthy by taking the time to prune them when they need it. What plants do you have in your garden?