Pruning
There is something about pruning that almost flies in the face of common sense. Why would you go to all that extra trouble to remove healthy and vigorous growth – growth that a thriving plant has gone to so much trouble to produce?
Further defying common sense, now, in late February or early March, is the best time in our area to prune various fruit trees and woody perennials,
While proper pruning is essential to the overall health, fruit production, disease prevention, and aesthetic quality of many plants, you can also damage your plants with pruning, especially if you do it at the wrong time.
People are tempted to prune in the fall because it is a time when they are out in the yard anyway, cleaning things up. But fall is the worst time of year to prune nearly every plant. The ground is covered with all kinds of dead and decaying foliage in the fall, which makes it not a good time to create open wounds on trees and shrubs – wounds that could serve as a pathway for disease to enter.
By waiting until late February or early March:
- the winter’s cold should have killed off many potential pathogens in the environment;
- the plants are still dormant with the bulk of their stored energies down in the lower parts of the stem and root system (not much swelling of buds yet);
- and the most severe conditions of winter have already passed.
Even if we do get extremely cold weather or a blizzard in spring, overall the days are getting longer, and inevitably there will be warmer daytime temperatures from late February onwards.
It is nearly impossible to give general instructions for how you should prune a given plant because each particular tree or vine has its own particular growth habit. There are, however, some basic rules and principles that can make even the amateur backyard gardener into a pretty decent pruner.
If you have dead or dying branches, no need to wait for late winter; they should be pruned out and discarded – and never composted – as soon as you notice them. It is a drain on the plant’s energy to support dead, broken, or diseased branches. Also, dead wood provides insects and plant diseases an easy entrance that could endanger the whole plant.
Dogwoods, walnuts, maples, and birches are trees that bleed, meaning that their sap will run if they are pruned at certain times of the year. For this group, wait until June, as that’s when they will lose the least sap. There are other exceptions to the rule, so it’s always best to check a reliable book or online resource. The agricultural extensions of Penn State (http://www.extension.psu.edu/), Ohio State (http://extension.osu.edu/), and Cornell (http://www.cce.cornell.edu/) tend to have the most relevant information for our area and conditions.
Generally speaking, for most fruit trees, vines, and woody perennials in our area, late winter is the best time to clean and sharpen those pruning devices:
- for small branches: pruning shears;
- for thicker branches: the longer handles of loppers provide better leverage and a longer reach;
- for higher-up branches: a pole pruner;
- for the really thick stuff: a variety of saws are available.
And why is it so important that the pruners be sharp? Because you want to be sure that you are cutting, not tearing, each time you prune. And why is it so important that blades be clean, even to the point of wiping them off with an alcohol swab between each cut, or at the very least between each plant? Because despite having chosen the best stage of dormancy for your pruning, repeated cutting can still result in the transfer of pathogens if they are present.
Choose a mild and sunny winter day, and begin by thinning out any spindly or weak branches, and especially any growth that criss-crosses, since wind causes crossing branches to rub against and damage each other. Generally speaking, your aim is to open up the tree for better penetration of sunlight and air circulation towards the center. Try to imagine the branches with leaves on them. Like houses in a neighborhood, sometimes fewer houses makes for a nicer neighborhood.
Next, you may want to remove branches that go straight up (sometimes called suckers or water sprouts), as these are of less value than horizontal growth — again because horizontal branches get better sun exposure. The direction that a bud is facing is the direction it will grow. If training a vine to an arbor or trellis, choose a bud facing back toward the structure. If training a fruit tree, choose a bud facing outwards to encourage a spreading habit. As a general rule, about one quarter inch above the bud is where to cut. Additionally, you may want to thin and shape for the form you desire (constantly trying to imagine leaves on the branches), or you may need to prune to provide some very specific condition that is optimal for the flowering or fruiting habit of your subject.
The range of how much to prune is total, all the way from hates to be pruned even a little to doesn’t mind being cut all the way back to the ground. Many fruiting vines and bushes have very specific pruning targets that will result in the best results, namely, the highest yield of fruit.
Grapes produce fruit on the current season’s shoot, so they need to be pruned heavily. Unpruned grapes may produce heavily for a year or two, but soon the quality and quantity of the fruit will decline.
Climbing varieties of roses should mostly be left alone, except to remove clearly dead wood. Roses that like pruning mostly want it done after they bloom in early summer, not while dormant. But roses vary greatly. Make sure you record which varieties you plant and follow the recommended pruning mode for that variety.
Some plants want you to remove one third of last year’s growth, while others would rather that you thin out two thirds of three-year-old canes. If you’re not sure, don’t follow your intuition! Take the time to look it up, because it’ll pay off in the end!
And while you’re at it, take time to look at the pictures and diagrams in a pruning book or at a reliable online resource. People have been cultivating these plants for thousands of years. There is almost certainly a best practice for each one. Surprisingly, you can learn and use it, and your plants will be happy you did.
Finally, try “forcing” some of your prunings to bloom by bringing a few that have swollen buds inside and placing them in a vase with water. Forsythia, crabapple, cherry, pussy willow, or kiwi are especially good candidates for this experiment. If the buds are far enough along that they can be forced to blossom, in a few days you’ll have a fresh blooming bouquet to remind you that spring is just around the corner.
© Copyright 2010 Connections Magazine
