7 Steps To Professional Pruning

When you take a piece of stem or root from a plant, you are pruning it. The whole point of pruning is to get more from the plant. The goal may be to make the plant bloom better, and possibly to set more and better fruit; or it may be to improve the shape of the plant or to make it more dense. If a plant is in poor health it may be cut back first to remove diseased or infested portions and second, to encourage fresh new growth. Except for hedges and sheared specimens in truly formal gardens, there is no excuse at all for pruning to restrict the development of a plant. If a plant grows too large for its location, pruning will only reduce it to a formless leafy blob. Remove it and plant a new specimen that, when mature, will be suited to the site.

Pruning is a simple operation but many people make it difficult because they do not understand how plants grow. All growth comes from buds; buds at the tips of stems or buds along the sides of stems. Included in the latter class are buds at the base of the plant. True roots have no buds but grow only from the tip outward. To shorten a branch, follow down to a side (lateral) bud that points in the direction a new shoot should develop to make a properly shaped plant. The bud probably will be tucked in the crotch (axil) of a leaf. Make a clean diagonal cut with a sharp tool directly above the bud. The face of the cut should slope away from the bud; the stub above the bud should be as short as possible without injuring the bud itself.

Winter pruning takes the same technique; prune over the tree or shrub to remove too dense interfering (rubbing or crowding) or injured twigs and branches. When you are through, the plant ought to have exactly the same general shape as before but be more open, and possibly somewhat shorter. To achieve this as you prune, step back occasionally to look at the effect you have achieved so far. Are you maintaining a natural form for the specimen? If so, proceed. If you are over-cutting, go easier on the remainder of the plant.

Never resort to butchery. Just because people with pruning equipment and trucks stop around the neighborhood and cut the tops from shade trees, chop flowering bushes to the ground and "prune" needle evergreens with a hedge shears, is no reason to adopt such poor practices. When a high tree needs top work (they seldom do, except to repair storm damage or to lighten the crown of overgrowth) call in a trained specialist. He will drop-prune the tree. That means he will selectively remove branches, dropping back on each limb to a crotch to make his cut. When he is through he may have removed as much as one-third of the crown of the tree, but you will see no difference in the shape of the tree (it will be considerably less dense, though) and you will see no stubs, only a number of painted cuts almost paralleling remaining branches.

Keep several generalities in mind as you prune:

1. Pruning during the dormant season results in a vigorous burst of growth (often, overgrowth) the following spring. Pruning during early summer tends to inhibit much replacement growth and it encourages the development of flower buds.

2. Use the proper tool for the job. If the branch is smaller than your middle finger, a hand pruner is right; from finger-sized to garden-hose-size branches you ought to reach for the lopping shears; very hard wood, or branches larger than the hose, ought to be sawed with a pruning saw. You will need one small, curved and tapered pruning saw - ideal for slipping into the center of a crowded forsythia to take out a few of the oldest canes at the ground line - and a curved, or straight, larger saw for removing tree limbs.

3. Make all cuts clean, as close to the main stem or supporting branch as possible, and, always, just above a bud. Leave no stubs.

4. When the face of a cut is larger than a penny, coat it with tree-wound dressing. There are two sorts: One is a thick, sticky paste and you apply it with a wooden plant label or a very stiff brush. The other is a thinner preparation that comes in an aerosol can. Avoid modern household paints, as they may contain solvents that would injure plant tissues and discourage healing.

5. When removing limbs of any size, be careful. Well away from the crotch make an undercut (saw from the bottom upward) a fourth of the way through the limb; then over-cut to drop the branch. Now you have to remove the stub; follow the same procedure, taking care to match up your cuts. If the surface of the cut is not quite smooth (rough wood often harbors decay organisms, even when painted) use a draw knife to smooth it. Then paint.

6. Prune so bleeding is kept to a minimum. Almost all woody plants will bleed if pruned in late winter or early spring. Prune in early I summer when growth has almost stopped, or early in winter. Maple, walnut, yellowwood, beech, birch and a few other species are notorious
"bleeders" and are safest pruned in the dead of summer.

7. If a plant that you are pruning is diseased, dip your pruning in denatured alcohol after every cut you make.