WHY DO WE PRUNE?

There are basically six key reasons to prune ornamental trees and shrubs:

1. Maintain Plant Health and Aesthetics:

• This involves removal of dead, diseased, or injured plant parts. Removal of these weak parts helps to minimize the potential for secondary or opportunistic pests.
• It also helps to maximize the aesthetic qualities and overall vigor of the shrub or tree.

2. Control Growth:

• This involves pruning to control the overall size and density of the plant.
• However, pruning shouldn’t be the way to rectify mistakes in planning, such as when you’ve selected and planted trees that are just too big or inappropriate for the site.

3. Reduction:

• This involves pruning to maximize flowering and fruit production.
• This usually involves pruning to open up the canopy in order to allow more light to penetrate. This stimulates the formation of flower buds.

4. Create Special Forms:

• This involves creating highly specialized forms such as hedges, espaliers, topiaries, and pollards.

5. Rejuvenate Old or Overgrown Plants:

• This involves pruning to create new plants from old plants.
• This practice is particularly helpful for shrubs that have become overgrown, sparse, or leggy and helps to stimulate the formation of new, more productive, vigorous wood.

6. Protect People and Property:

• This involves pruning of branches and limbs that are hazardous, weak, or rotted and represent potential hazards to people and property.

1. Pruning Shears:

• These are used for small-diameter branches and twigs up to about 1½ inches in diameter.

There are two types:

• Scissors-type (bypass): these have two cutting blades and the cut is made as the blades bypass one another.
• Anvil-type: these have a single cutting blade which strikes an anvil of solid metal. The cut is made when the blade impacts the solid surface.

2. Lopping Shears:

• These are used for branches greater than 1¾ inches in diameter.
• They are similar to pruning shears but have longer handles to provide the leverage needed to cut larger-diameter branches.
• These are also available as scissors- and anvil-types.

3. Pruning Saws:

• These are used for large branches and tree limbs, usually greater than 2-3 inches in diameter.
• Saws come in a variety of sizes and types.
• Chain saws can also be used if one has experience and proper safety equipment.

Regardless of the tool, it is important to keep it sharp and clean. This can be done with regular sharpening and cleaning with 10% household bleach (1 part bleach: 9 parts water), 70% alcohol, or one of the commercially available compounds such as Greenshield®. After cleaning, the tools should be thoroughly rinsed and oiled. A sharp blade will give a clean cut with minimal damage to the tissue

When deciding what to prune in the spring, it’s essential to know whether or not the flower buds are already on the branches. As a general rule, you can prune any shrubs in the early spring that haven’t formed their flowers yet. On the other hand, any shrubs that already have flower buds on the branches should not be pruned until after they blossom this season; otherwise, you’ll be removing this year’s flowers. Here’s a quick summary to help you decide: 

• Shrubs That Bloom on New Growth: the late winter or early spring is the best time to prune shrubs including roses, spirea, butterfly bush, rose of Sharon, potentillas, crape myrtles, and most, but not all hydrangeas.  
• Shrubs that Bloom on Old Growth: wait until these shrubs are done flowering before you prune them—including lilac, forsythia, weigela, mock orange, rhododendrons, viburnums, and azaleas.
• Hedges, Topiaries, and Ornamental Trees: these plants can also be pruned in the spring, with the exception of maples and birches, which should be pruned in the summer or fall to avoid losing too much sap. 

How many of you had deep sadness this spring when you saw the snow’s violent impact on your favorite Weeping landscape trees of merit or your favorite flowering or evergreen needle conifer.

With most plants in a dormant state, we can do some maintenance now during winter to prevent having to assess and manage snow-and-ice damage in the future.

Regular maintenance pruning strengthens trees and gives you the opportunity to spot weaknesses. Performing regular pruning to trees and shrubs is not only important for the aesthetics of plants but is also crucial to minimizing potential damage from heavy snow and ice loads.

When Peter Atkins comes to your property to review your ornamental trees and shrubs, he will be looking at the structural pruning of the plant. We will need to remove or reduce the weak branches to better manage the added weight in the winter from heavy snow. By doing this type of pruning in the fall we can increase the odds of decreasing winter damage from future storms. If you decide that certain limbs of a significant size are weak, then cable or bracing may be needed to further support the structure of the trees in question.

Common Trees and Shrubs in Connecticut and New York include:

• Boxwoods
• Azaleas
• Gold Thread Cypress
• Mugo Pines
•   Japanese Maples    
• Mounded Pine,·        
• American arborvitae ·        
• Yew ·        
• Popular
• Birch   
• Willow
• White Pine
• Hemlock        
• Maple·        
• Elm

These specialty shrubs and ornamental trees have brittle wood that is prone to winter damage if not properly tuned and supported. By going through your trees and shrubs performing those tasks now in winter dormancy, you can increase the odds of decreasing winter damage from future storms.