In late winter, you’ll see the evidence everywhere: trees whose crowns have been removed in neat, horizontal cuts, leaving bare, blunt stumps in place of elegant canopies. This seems to be a decisive decision. In control. It was as if someone had taken over control of the situation. According to most credentialed horticulturists working today, it’s one of the worst things you can do to a mature tree. In spite of this, homeowners continue to pay landscaping firms to maintain the aesthetic appeal of their properties year after year.
Pruning is one of those gardening techniques that almost everyone thinks they understand, despite receiving no formal instruction in it. The instinct to cut back seems productive, even corrective. Is your plant overgrown? It should be cut. Do the branches appear disorganized? Cut them into slices. Does the tree get too close to the house? Remove the top. As soon as you realize how a plant reacts to being chopped, everything changes drastically. By using the wrong pair of loppers and having perfectly good intentions, what appears to be control often turns out to be damage, sometimes irreversible.
Steve Bradley has been working to resolve this issue for more than 30 years. With an RHS Master of Horticulture degree and a background in education, Bradley is a Surrey, England-based horticulturist. With his horticulturist wife, he has authored over fifty books and given lectures all over Britain. The Pruner’s Bible aims to provide gardeners with a framework for understanding what plants are really doing so they can make intentional cuts rather than reflexive ones. About seventy common plants are covered in the book. “What matters is not how or where to cut, but what you are trying to accomplish.” Just that reframing tends to change people’s perspective.
Pruning misconceptions revolve around timing. According to conventional wisdom, it is best to prune in early spring before new growth appears. It’s not entirely wrong, but it’s far from comprehensive. According to Bradley’s rule, if a plant flowers between Christmas and late summer, prune it immediately after flowering ends. You should follow this rule even if you are unsure of the species you are dealing with. If it blooms between late summer and Christmas, wait until next spring to prune it. It is a biological logic. When the cut is made before late summer, the plant still has time to grow new growth and set flower buds before winter arrives. If a plant is pruned at the wrong time in its life cycle, it will not bloom the following year. Some gardeners spend seasons wondering why their shrubs have become silent, but they never connect this to a poorly timed cut.
Next, we’ll look at the tools. In spite of the fact that it sounds almost too simple to discuss, blunt, dirty, or improperly sized cutting equipment can cause damage that goes beyond aesthetics. When a blade is dull, it ruptures and crushes plant tissue, leaving frayed, jagged edges that allow fungi and diseases to enter. Pathogens can be spread covertly throughout a garden using unclean tools. Additionally, you must use the right tools: loppers for thicker growth, pruning saws for anything larger, and bypass pruners for pencil-wide stems. The plant may take years to recover from the stress caused by using hand pruners on a branch that needs to be sawed.
Some of the worst mistakes-in both directions-are made when it comes to pruning anxiety around the question of how much to remove. As a result of too much removal in one session, the plant loses its ability to produce energy and carbohydrates, making it more susceptible to disease and pests. One-third of a plant should never be removed at a time; this boundary is especially important for trees. The problem with ignoring pruning is that it leads to slow-moving issues of its own. In addition to reducing flowering and fruiting, dense branches block light from inner growth, and create damp, still air pockets that foster the spread of fungi. In Bradley’s opinion, annual, careful pruning is more of an ongoing maintenance practice than an act of aggression toward plants; it’s similar to guidance a child receives in his or her formative years, helping to form habit and structure.
It is important to deal with pruning errors head on since they are unique. Tree topping is still practiced in many parts of the United States and United Kingdom, which involves cutting across a tree’s main upward stem to remove its crown. The practice is defended by homeowners and landscaping firms as a safety precaution that reduces a tree’s height and wind resistance. By removing the tree’s primary energy-producing foliage, it triggers a desperate reaction in which it produces a large number of weak, rapidly growing shoots known as water spouts to rebuild its canopy. As a result of improper growth cycles, the tree usually dies within a few years, and the shoots that replace the branches are structurally weaker and more likely to break in a storm. Therefore, topped trees do not become safer. Eventually, they die and become more dangerous. It is an unjustifiable practice in contemporary arboriculture.
Subtle errors go unnoticed but quietly accumulate over time. The plant cannot heal a wound or produce new growth when a branch is cut at the incorrect angle or too far from the node. Most flowering shrubs only bloom once on a particular piece of wood, so removing a branch bearing spent flowers will allow new growth to bloom in subsequent seasons. In the absence of this, unproductive branches gradually push out the growth that would replace them. Following clematis and hydrangea pruning schedules incorrectly is a surefire way to miss one or more flowering seasons. Botanical factors such as these are not insignificant. A performing garden differs from one that just endures by these details.
It is impossible to ignore how much of their confidence comes from observation when you spend time with any seasoned gardener. Instead of focusing on technique, Bradley’s best advice focuses on posture. Take a moment to think before you cut. Observe the plant’s behavior, growth, location, and aspirations. It is possible to learn more about pruning a plant by observing it for a year without touching it than by reading a pruning manual. There will still be cuts to be made. When they are manufactured with that level of focus, they often land exactly where they should.
Most gardeners don’t realize how intelligent plants are. Almost always, a healthy specimen recovers after being severed too severely. Major pruning often results in vigorous, even exuberant growth. Plants that have been neglected, topped, or cut with tools that have disease on their blades from the previous season are less likely to recover. It is not the hesitant mistakes that matter most. Self-assured people lack the knowledge to understand what is really wrong.