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SPRING HOME & GARDEN • MARCH 2020
THE WINCHESTER STAR
‘TIS THE SEASON TO PRUNE March is a great time to prune many shrubs, but not all By LEE REICH Associated Press
Don’t prune your forsythia, lilac or mock orange yet. Anything you cut off now will result in that much less of a flower show this spring. Except for these and many other spring-flowering shrubs, however, March is a fine time for pruning many trees and shrubs. It’s easy to see what to cut on leafless plants, and cuts heal quickly. So here’s a list of some pruning jobs to take on now.
GET YOUR TOOLS READY Before you star t, sharpen your pruning tools. Plants heal most quickly from the clean cuts that result from sharp tools. Get out a whetstone or file to touch up blades on hand shears
and loppers. With an anvil-type pruning tool, where a sharp blade closes against the flat edge of an opposing blade, sharpen only the sharp blade, on both sides. With a bypass-style tool, which has two sharpened blades sliding past each other like scissors, sharpen both blades, but each only on its outside edge.
FOR BEAUTY Prune summer flowering shrubs such as butterfly bush and summersweet clethra severely, today or sometime before growth begins. These plants bloom only on new shoots, and the more new growth they make, the better the bloom. Stimulate luxuriant new growth by lopping these plants to within a few inches of the ground.
As soon as buds start to swell on hybrid tea roses, remove wood chips, Styrofoam rose cones or any winter protection you’ve provided, and prune. Cut any canes blackened by disease or winter injur y back to healthy tissue. Then shorten remaining healthy stems according to the size of the plant and the number and size of blossoms you desire. As a general guide, cut weak rose stems back to about a half-foot and strong ones to a foot or more. Less severe pruning results in a plant that is larger, with blossoms that are more abundant and earlier, but smaller. Prune shrubby dogwoods (Tartarian, silky, bloodtwig, gray and redosier). Their youngest stems are the ones that are the brightest yellow or red in winter. Cut to the ground some or all of the older stems to make way
for new ones that will provide next winter’s show. Shrubs such as witch hazel, flowering quince and rose-of-Sharon require little regular pruning. Do look them over now, though, and cut away diseased or dead wood, as well as any stems that are obviously out of place, either visually or because they are rubbing other stems. Pr une hydrangea according to what kind it is. Hills-of-snow (smooth hydrangea) flowers on long, new shoots later in summer, so cut all stems down to the ground now. Also prune bigleaf hydrangea and oakleaf hydrangea, but shorten stems only a tad, back to the fat flower buds near their ends. Prune the tree-like PeeGee Hydrangea ver y little, snipping off old flower heads if you find them unattractive and removing and short-
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