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Your Guide to Pruning
 Pruning is essential to growing and maintaining healthy shrubs. Done correctly, it can help control the size of a shrub, encourage new growth, revitalize old shrubs, influence flowering or fruiting and maintain the plant’s overall health and appearance.
Pruning Cuts
There are three major types of pruning cuts: thinning, heading back and rejuvenation. Thinning is the most common and best way to renew a shrub. This technique seeks to preserve the plant’s overall shape and is particularly useful for those shrubs that sucker from their base. To thin, use loppers or a pruning saw to remove interior branches back to the plant’s base or point of origin. Make sure to remove only 1/3 of the largest branches at one time.
Heading back is a great pruning technique if you wish to reduce your shrub’s height. Simply remove each branch back to a larger branch or bud making sure not to leave any stubs. Near bud cuts should be made on an angle within a 1/4 inch above the bud (see image).
If your shrubs are overgrown, leggy or sucker readily from the base, consider rejuvenation pruning. Cut the entire shrub back to a height or four to ten inches above the ground when the shrubs are dormant. Some shrubs that tolerate this technique well are butterfly bush, Annabelle hydrangea, potentilla and Japanese spirea. Regardless of the pruning technique, make sure to disinfect your pruning tools with alcohol or a 10% bleach solution after each cut to avoid spreading diseases.
When to Prune
Shrubs should be pruned at different times depending on whether they are spring or summer flowering. Spring-flowering shrubs, or those that produce buds once a year on wood produced the preceding summer, should be pruned AFTER they have flowered in the spring, but BEFORE next year’s flower buds are set. Note, if you prune these too early, you will remove many of the spring buds. Summer-flowering shrubs, or those that produce buds on new growth in the spring, should be pruned either when they are dormant or in early spring before the buds appear.
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Common Spring-flowering shrubs |
Common Summer-flowering shrubs |
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lilacs, forsythia, viburnums, honeysuckle, chokeberry, mock orange, weigela |
hydrangeas, roses, Japanese spirea, rose-of-Sharon, potentillas, smoke bush |
Failure to prune these early enough may result in the loss of flower buds. Here are pruning suggestions for several common shrubs:
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Shrub |
Pruning Suggestions |
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Cotoneaster |
Cut old or diseased wood at ground level. |
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Dogwoods |
Cut old and discolored canes at ground level. |
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Euonymus |
Reshape when needed by cutting most vigorous branches. Grows with one trunk like a tree, so do not prune at ground level. |
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Forsythia |
Cut out three-year old wood to base just after flowers have faded. |
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Honeysuckle |
Renewal prune to promote new growth at base. Cut entire plant to ground during dormant season. |
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Lilac |
Remove old flower parts after it blooms. Renewal prune when needed. |
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Mockorange |
Renewal prune when needed. |
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Potentilla, Sprireas |
Cut back entire plant halfway to the ground and selectively remove old canes at ground level. |
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Viburnums |
Some grow slowly and need little pruning. When needed, remove old wood to ground level. |
Pruning Tools
There are two main types of pruning tools: hand pruners and loppers. Loppers are essentially hand pruners with longer handles for added reach and leverage. They are ideal for larger projects because they can reduce some of the strain on your wrists. Both hand pruners and loppers can be further divided into three sub-types: anvil, bypass and ratchet. See the following chart for details.
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Features and Uses |
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Anvil |
Features a cutting blade that cuts down on a stationary anvil. Sturdy and ideal for removing tough, dead wood. |
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Bypass |
Features two blades that bypass each other similar to a scissors. Makes nice, clean cuts on all wood types. |
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Ratchet |
Anvil pruners with a ratchet mechanism. Offer additional leverage to ease the strain of larger pruning projects. |
When purchasing a pruning tool be sure to consider the type of pruning you intend to do as well your personal preferences. Whether you are shopping for a pruner or a lopper, make sure to hold the tool to see how it feels in your hands in terms of weight and size. If you plan on doing a limited amount of pruning and this is your first pruner purchase, we recommend a bypass pruner or lopper. For larger, more difficult projects consider a ratchet pruner or lopper. If your pruning project is too big for a lopper, you will need to use a saw. Pruning saws are specifically designed to cut live and dead wood. You can also do light pruning with folding or sliding saws. Here’s a closer look at several types of pruning saws:
Tree Saws: Features a twelve to sixteen-inch blade with a D-shaped handle. It cuts on the pull stroke and clears debris on the push stroke.
Pole Pruning Saw: A telescoping pruning saw that reaches up and cuts right through limbs with its saw blade.
Bow Saw: A metal-framed saw in the shape of a bow with a coarse, wide blade. Use to cross-cut branches down to size after they have been pruned.
Pole Tree Pruners: A pruner and saw blade attached to a twelve to fourteen foot lightweight fiberglass telescoping pole that is raised up and down with a rope and pulley system.
Getting Started
 Visit Stein Gardens & Gifts today to choose from a wide selection of pruning tools and saws. If you have a specific pruning question, ask us on Facebook. Our lawn and garden experts are ready to help.
Sources
Hasselkus, E. R. Caring for Deciduous Shrubs. Rep. Madison: Coroporative Extension, 1999. Web. .
Jull, Laura. "Pruning Deciduous Shrubs." Wisconsin Horticulture | UW-Extension Cooperative Extension. 26 Apr. 2004. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. .
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