A Beginner's Guide to Pruning Shrubs
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Shrubs and bushes add an incredible burst of color, especially during the spring and autumn season. At the same time, they provide your lawn with a natural barrier and give you some privacy from your neighbors. They are also a delight to decorate during the holiday season.
Over time, however, their branches will grow in different directions that they almost appear like they have a mind of their own. Unless you're pruning shrubs and bushes in your garden regularly, it can quickly become overgrown and turn into an eyesore. Not taking the time to prune your shrubs and bushes also increase the risk for plant diseases to spread and pests to invade your garden.
Ideally, you should be pruning shrubs and bushes once a year. Of course, that greatly depends on the type of bush or shrub as well as the size of your garden. If your lawn is quite small, you may need to prune it more frequently since an overgrown shrub can easily crowd your landscape.
Steps to pruning shrubs
Pruning shrubs can be quite intimidating for beginners, and for a good reason. There's always the possibility that you may cut a branch much shorter than you intended, so you end up with a lopsided shrub.
1.Use the right tools.
A grass cutter may look more convenient to use when pruning shrubs. After all, it's able to cut out a larger area than a regular hand pruner, so you get the job done faster.
While that may be true, it can be quite difficult to control how much of your shrub or bush your grass cutter trims away. They're also a lot more difficult to maneuver if you want rounded corners.
Pruning shrubs using a regular hand pruner or a long-handled lopper does take longer, but you have more control over how much you trim away. It also quickly gets through those tight areas and make sure that your shrub or bush is balanced.
2.Cover the base with a trap.
After a long day of pruning shrubs, the last thing you'd want is to have to gather all the branches you trimmed off to put in your recycle bin.
Laying a tarp around the base of the shrub you'll be pruning will help cleaning up after so much easier. All you'll need to do is to gather the ends of the tarp and haul the debris away.
3.Start getting rid of the stray branches.
Stray branches are those that appear more extended than the rest. Trim these off one at a time, using the uniform branches as your basis to make everything uniform.
4.Remove the thickest branches.
If you're pruning shrubs that are overgrown, start by getting rid of the thickest branches by cutting them right down to the base of the shrub. This will help promote new growth as well as make your bushes look neater.
5.Thin out the outer cover
Once your shrub is beautiful and even, the next step is to get rid of the outer leaves so that you're left with a thin layer. Doing this will allow air and sunlight to get through those inner
branches. At the same time, it will expose any dead branches and twigs so that you can get rid off as well.
6.Trim off dead limbs.
Most of the dead limbs and branches can be found at the bottom of your shrub or bush because this is the area that gets the least amount of sunlight.
One important thing to remember about pruning shrubs is to be careful not to make the top fuller than the base. Otherwise, air and sunlight won't be able to reach these areas.
7.Get rid of the suckers.
Suckers are small branches that often grow at the base of your shrub's trunk. These don't add to the aesthetic appeal of your bush, but they do suck a lot of the nutrients and prevent them from getting to the top part of the shrub (hence the name).
What about if I want the shrubs to look fancy?
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One neat thing about shrubs like boxwood is that you can trim and prune it into different shapes. If this is what you'd like to achieve, it would be best to call in a professional gardener or landscape artist to do the job for you.
Hiring a professional gardener to do this for you will actually cost you only a fraction of what you'd pay for the specialised equipment you'll need to create those fancy designs. Also, they'll be able to get the job done faster so you and your family will be able to enjoy showing this off to your friends and family in no time at all.
