Bring Your Plants to Life this Spring with Winter Pruning!
Promote Beautiful Growth this Spring with Winter Pruning!
You may not know it, but most trees, shrubs, and vines should be pruned during the late winter to facilitate fantastic spring and summer growth! Pruning these plants in the late winter has three general advantages; the pruning wounds heal and seal faster since you’re pruning just prior to new spring growth, pruning during this period minimizes your chances of disease, pests and cold damage, and lastly, it is much easier to see the shape, health, and integrity of the shrubs and trees without all of the foliage getting in the way.
Before you start taking off branches and foliage make sure you are using the proper tools to do so and that they are in good clean condition. Hand pruners are suitable for branches and shrub limbs less than one-half an inch thick in diameter. If the branch is one to one and a half inches in diameter you will want to consider using something similar to a limb lopper. Please contact Personal Touch Gardening to cut and prune your larger trees.
Late winter is the best time to prune deciduous trees and large shrubs because the coldest part of the season has passed and the chance of cold damage to your pruned cuts is significantly less. Prune to shape your plants and to rid the plants of dead, damaged, crossing, and overgrown limbs. Be sure to prune off limbs that have succumbed to winter damage as well. Limbs with winter damage, or winterkill, have shriveled or darkened bark and buds that remain lifeless as others swell.
Trees
You never want to prune off more than 1/3 of the tree’s canopy and canopy limbs during one season and make sure that you’re not pruning off too much live wood. Prune apple trees, including Crabapples, Mountain Ash, Hawthorns, as well as American Elms in late winter to avoid disease. Spring or summer pruning increases chances for infection and spread of the bacterial disease fireblight, and fall or early winter pruning is more likely to result in drying and die-back at pruning sites. Trees such as Elm, Maple, Walnut and Birch do bleed sap when pruned in late winter to early spring. Although not necessarily detrimental to your trees, bleeding is reduced if these tree species are pruned in the fall. However, pruning cuts heal much more slowly in the fall than in any other season.
Shrubs
You’ll want to prune spring-flowering shrubs, such as Forsythia and Winter Jasmine, right after their blossoms fade. Spring flowering shrubs set there buds right after they bloom, so there is a short window of pruning time. Prune your Honey Locusts while they are still dormant in the late winter to avoid stem cankers and other diseases. Green and late flowering shrubs such as Butterfly Bush, Elderberry, Japanese Spireas, Smoke Bushes, and St. John’s Wort can be pruned from late winter to early spring since they are susceptible to winterkill and pruning these shrubs can promote a lot of growth if the weather is warm, so the later in the winter is best. More resistant shrubs such as Gooseberry and Currant can also be pruned anytime during winter because their stems are rarely damaged by the winter cold.
Contact Personal Touch Gardening to take care of your winter and early spring pruning!
Sources: Fine Gardening – http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/maintenance-pruning.aspx?nterms=74872 & http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/qa/trees-winter-pruning.aspx, & http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/forcing-branches.aspx?utm_source=email&utm_medium=eletter&utm_ content=20120123-15tips&utm_campaign=fine-gardening-eletter
Plantalk Colorado by Colorado State University – http://www.ext.colostate.edu/ptlk/1730.html & http://www.ext.colostate.edu/ptlk/1724.html
University of Minnesota - http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/dg0628.html
