Pruning in February

Today was a treat…a sunny day in February to work in the garden.  Even though it’s still too soon to plant, there’s still no shortage of things to do.  

I decided to do some pruning.  My late-blooming spirea have been overgrown for awhile now.  I hate pruning…it stresses me out.  Not the kind of pruning where a branch has broken or died on its own – I’m fine with that.  It’s the kind of pruning that involves cutting back what looks to be an otherwise healthy plant.  That really gives me agita.

Shrubs like forsythia and butterfly bush accumulate old, dead wood in the center unless they're  pruned regularly.  Generally, it’s good to thin out the old wood to improve air flow and encourage the plant to shoot up new growth. 

Books and gardening magazines give you all kinds of information on the optimal time to prune, but it was something a speaker at a recent Garden Club meeting said that inspired me to get out there today.  This isn’t a direct quote (because I can’t remember exactly what he said), but basically it was that, late winter/early spring is a great time to prune because trees and shrubs are ‘unencumbered by their leaves’.  At this time of year, you can really see the shape of plant and where branches are crossing or need thinning.   

I might not be able to tell you anything else I heard that night, but “unencumbered” stuck with me, and I found it helped guide me as I worked on pruning my shrubs today. When I was done, I had removed a fairly large pile of branches.  Call me crazy, but it seemed like I heard the shrubs give a sigh of relief and say…..finally. 

I found this list on the University of Minnesota Extension website.  I’m going to print it out and put it in my gardening calendar/notebook for easy reference. 
I hope you find it useful too.

See you in the garden,

Kathy

www.thegardencluboflongvalley.shutterfly.com

Trees and shrubs that bloom early in the growing season on last year’s growth should be pruned immediately after they finish blooming:

• Early blooming spirea
• Azalea
• Chokeberry
• Chokecherry
• Clove currant
• Flowering plum
• Cherry
• Forsythia
• Lilac
• Magnolia

Shrubs grown primarily for their foliage rather than flowers should be pruned in spring, before growth begins:

• Apine currant
• Buffaloberry
• Dogwood
• Honeysuckle
• Ninebark
• Purpleleaf sandcherry
• Smokebush
• Sumac