Pruning Shrubs and Vines

Pruning can be done to thin out branches, to make a spindly shrub bushier, to remove dead wood, to rejuvenate an old shrub, to shape a plant, or to encourage the plant to produce fewer, but larger flowers or more flowers.

Removing Dead Wood

This can be done at any time of the year. Cut back to healthy outward facing bud or shoot. Prune any straggly branches by half to a strong shoot or bud facing outward.

Shrubs to Prune After They Flower:

Some shrubs start forming flower buds for the next year soon after they bloom. If they are pruned during the fall or winter, you will be cutting off branches that may have flower buds on them, thereby reducing the number of flowers it will have the following season. To avoid this, prune them right after they flower.
Here are some shrubs that need this kind of pruning:

Acacia Hydrangea macrophylla Beauty Bush
Kerria Bottlebrush Mock Orange
Buddleia alternifolia Prunus glandulosa albiplena Flowering Currant
Prunus triloba Deutzia Weigela
Forsythia
Cut back or cut off some of the oldest branches. Thin out the weakest of the new shoots. Always cut just above a vigorous side branch.

Shrubs & Vines to Prune in Spring or Late Winter (as growth starts):
Spanish Broom Passionflower Buddleia davidii
Spirea Crape Myrtle Tamarix pentundra
Fuchsia magellanica Vitex Hydrangea arborescens grandiflora
Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora

Cut all of last year's shoots back to two or three buds or shoots from their base. Do not cut into the older wood. After pruning, apply a complete fertilizer.

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