To ensure your shrubs are looking their best and produce full and plentiful flowers, it’s important to prune them at the right time of the season. Here are some guidelines for the best times to prune your shrubs.
Early Summer
Evergreen shrubs, such as yews, juniper, and boxwood should be trimmed in the early summer. Flowering shrubs, such as forsythias and lilacs should be pruned for shaping or size control after flowering in the summer. Shrubs form buds for the next year’s flowers during the summer so it’s important that you don’t prune them after mid-summer.
Winter or Early Spring
Summer flowering perennials such as butterfly bush, snow hydrangea, and oleander are best pruned in the winter or early spring. However, if a limb is damaged from frost, make sure to cut them off your shrub as soon as possible.
Fall
Flowing annuals are best pruned in the fall because removing dead flowers as they start to wilt extends the flowering or can promote a second round of blossoms.
Pruning at different times in the year triggers different responses from a shrub. Before bud break, which is in late winter or early spring, is generally the best time to prune many species – it allows for the tissue to grow more rapidly. For spring blooming shrubs, however, pruning should be delayed until immediately after flowering so it doesn’t lack a floral display. More questions about when your shrub should be pruned? Call American Arbor Care, your Denver tree care experts.
March 17, 2021