By John Monzingo, Assistant County Agent
Pruning is the practice of removing certain parts of the plant to stimulate new growth and increase the quality or production of flowers and fruits. Even as I draft this article, I know it sounds a little confusing. I am going to cut something off a plant, and it will grow better? Yes! I was not sure I genuinely believed this until last year. I have a climbing rose plant that surrounds my mailbox and for the last couple of years it has not been producing the quality and quantity of rose as it once had. I talked with other agents, and they suggested pruning the rose. In February last year, I took out my pruning shears and started cutting. I had to get over my initial fear of hurting the plant. I did my homework before I started and I began cutting, I removed what I considered parts that were old or unproductive and by the time I finished my poor rose bush had two or three main parts left. I thought to myself, “well I either just killed it or helped it.” As it turned out, I helped it. It was the best year of rose production I had in about five years.
Before you start pruning there are different tools you will need. A small pair of hand clippers to remove small parts of the plants. A large set of loppers to remove branches from trees. And lastly a saw in case you are cutting extremely big parts of a tree. Another thing to remember is you are going to want to clean your tools between cuts to insure you do not spread diseases or fungus in the plant.
After you have gathered the proper tools for the job, examine the plant looking for dead parts, diseased parts, damaged, or broken. Once you have identified the parts you want to remove, cut the unwanted part at a 45 degree angle. By cutting the plant at an angle, it keeps rainwater from collecting on the freshly cut piece that can lead to disease or fungal infection.
There are general rules of thumb you need to go by while pruning a plant. Most trees, shrubs and roses should be pruned during their dorment time of the year. Dormancy usually occurs during late November until early March. There is an exception to this rule. Plants that bloom in early spring, such as dogwoods, tulip trees, and azaleas, if pruned during the winter months their flower production will be lost for that year. When pruning these plants, prune them as soon as bloom production is done for that year.