Tree Pruning Tips
There are two kinds of winter gardening. The first method usually starts
in January as the gardening catalogs begin to arrive in the mail. This
type of gardening is as easy as sitting in your favorite chair, browsing
the catalogs, and either dreaming about what you're going to do this
spring, or actually drawing designs for the gardens you intend to work
on.
The
second type of winter gardening is to actually get out in the yard and
do a little work. Of course if it's bitter cold, you'd be better off
waiting for a good day. Winter is a good time to do some pruning if the
temperatures are around 30 degrees or so.
I don't recommend pruning if
it's considerably below freezing because the wood is brittle and will
shatter when you make a cut. One of the advantages of pruning during the
winter is that you can see much better what needs to be cut out and what
should
stay. At least that's true with deciduous plants. The other advantage is
that the plants are dormant, and won't mind you doing a little work on
them.
Ornamental trees should pruned to remove competing branches.
Weeping Cherries, Flowering Dogwoods, Flowering Crabapples etc. have a
tendency to send branches in many different directions. It is your job
to decide how you want the plant to look, and then start pruning to
achieve that look. But first stick your head inside the tree and see
what you can eliminate from there. This is like looking under the hood,
and
when you do you'll see a lot of small branches that have been starved of
sunlight, that certainly don't add anything to the plant. They are just
there, and should be cut out.
Any branch that is growing toward the center of the tree where it will
get little sunlight should be cut out. Where there are two branches that
are crossing, one of them should be eliminated. Once you get the inside
of the plant cleaned up, you can start shaping the outside.
Shaping the
outside is actually quite easy. Just picture how you want the plant to
look, and picture imaginary lines of the finished outline of the plant.
Cut off anything that is outside of these imaginary lines. It is also
important to cut the tips of branches that have not yet reached these
imaginary lines in order to force the plant to fill out.
For the most
part plants have two kinds of growth: Terminal branches and lateral
branches. Each branch has one terminal bud at the very end, and many
lateral branches along the sides. The terminal buds grow in an outward
direction away from the plant. Left uncut they just keep growing in the
same
direction, and the plant will grow tall and very thin.
That's why the trees
in the woods are so thin and not very attractive. When you cut a branch
on a plant, the plant sets new buds just below where you cut. When you
remove the terminal bud the plant will set multiple buds; this is how
you make a plant nice and full.
Don't be afraid to trim your plants,
they will be much nicer because of it. The more you trim them, the
fuller they become.
Lots of people have a real problem with this. They just can't bring
themselves to prune. Especially when it comes to plants like Japanese
Red Maples. It kills them to even think about pruning a plant like this.
Just do it! You'll have a beautiful plant because of it.
Look at the plant objectively. If you see a branch that looks like it's
growing too far in the wrong direction, cut it. If you make a mistake it
will grow back. Not pruning is the only mistake you can make.
I hope
this helps and doesn't get you in trouble with your significant other.
Many a family feud has started over pruning.
