Pruning and Staking

Pruning is needed to keep your plant healthy, vigorous and productive.

More commonly, pruning is used to shape plants. Understanding only a few simple principles will provide you with the confidence to remove the necessary limbs and branches of your plants. If you make the wrong cut, be assured the plant will grow back. By understanding how the plant grows you can make the correct pruning decisions.

Tools
The best tools to use in pruning are bypass pruners, bypass loppers, and a pruning saw, all sharpened. The bypass blades are preferable since they are less injurious to the plant; the anvil type (one cutting blade) bruises the plant tissue. Pruning shears are used for branches under ½” diameter. Use loppers for ½” to 1” diameter branches. Over 1” thick, the branch should be cut with a pruning saw. Attempting to cut branches with improper tools can quickly ruin the tool as well as damage the plant.

Order of Pruning
To begin, remove dead and diseased wood first. In fact, don’t wait for an “ideal” pruning time to do this; the sooner it is removed the better for the plant. For diseased wood, remove 2” to 3” of healthy tissue along with the diseased portion, this will help to prevent spreading of the disease through the plant. In addition, when cutting diseased branches, sterilize the pruning tool with rubbing alcohol, Lysol spray, or 10% bleach solution. Doing this will eliminate spreading the disease throughout the plant and to other plants. Some gardeners carry a bucket of solution with them. Others prefer to use alcohol or bleach ’wipes’. Clean the blades of your tools before each cut.

Second, remove suckers and watersprouts. Suckers are small branches that grow at the base of the trunk and occasionally along the roots. If left, these can overpower the desired specimen, especially a grafted one. These are commonly found on crabapples, fruit trees, contorted hazelnuts, hawthorns, lilacs, and serviceberries. Watersprouts are branches that grow vertically off main branches. Since they rarely flower or fruit, grow rapidly, and destroy the shape of the tree, remove them yearly. Crabapples, fruit trees, flowering cherries, and plums commonly develop this growth type, as will many other species that are heavily trimmed the previous growing season.

Third, remove weak crotches where one branch attaches to another in a “V” shape with a 30-degree or less angle. These crotches are prone to splitting as the tree matures.

Fourth, remove crossing branches, ones that grow into another, and branches that rub together. By doing this the tree will appear more natural and will be structurally sound.

Finally, prune for the desired shape of the plant, whether natural or formal. Being familiar with the mature shape of the tree is helpful. It is difficult to keep an open rounded tree in a narrow vertical form.

Making Proper Cuts
When making the cut, do not leave a stub. Prune back to a bud, branch, or trunk. For a twig, make a clean cut, ¼” above the bud, slanting away from the bud. To remove branches make the final cut at the branch collar. Although branch collars can vary between species, they are generally a thickened ridge area at the base of the branch (see figure 1). No longer is a flush cut considered appropriate; rather, at the base of the stem and at the top of the collar is where the quickest healing will occur after pruning.

When removing 2” or larger branches undercut the branch 6” from the final cut. Next, at the top of the branch, about 6 ½” from the final cut, remove the branch. This will leave a 6” stub which should be removed at the branch collar. This process will allow removal of the branch without tearing or ripping the bark (see figure 2).

Pruning Times

Shade Trees
Prune in late February to early April. Exceptions: those trees that bleed such as Birch, Elm, and Maple. Prune trees in mid to late summer.

Ornamental Trees
Spring-flowering trees should be pruned when flowering is completed; otherwise you will remove the next crop of flowers. E.g., Crabapple, Magnolia, Redbud, Juniper, Arborvitae, Yew

Broadleaf Evergreens
May/June /Spring/Early Summer/Fall
Azalea, Boxwood, English Ivy Euonymus, Pyracantha, Holly, Rhododendron

Fruit Trees
Prune fruit trees late winter to early spring, preferably on a nice day in February or early March.

Central-Leader System: apples, pears, blue plums, sweet cherries

Open-Center System: peaches, nectarines, red plums—prune up to half the new growth

Either System: apricots, sour cherries

Brambles
Everbearing – once in early spring, as soon as possible after first crop by removing fruited canes

Black Raspberries – Remove old canes after fruiting; pinch top at 3’ to 4’. May do tips
again in late summer

Red and Yellow Raspberries – once in early spring, as soon as possible after fruiting
Do not summer top.

Blackberries – Once in early spring and after harvest

Blueberries – Early spring and mid-summer

Currants and Gooseberries – early spring

Grapes – early spring back to main stem leaving some branches