HIGHER GROUND GARDENS

Pruning Tips for Your Flowering Evergreen Shrubs

My neighbour asked me a couple of years ago what he was doing wrong with his Rhododendron and Camellia shrubs. They never seemed to produce flowers, and his wife was disappointed. I asked when he was pruning the shrubs, and his answer was in the autumn. I had to be the bearer of bad news and let him know he had been cutting off all the flowering buds simply by pruning at the wrong time. Now my neighbour prunes in the late spring, immediately after the evergreen shrubs have finished flowering. As a result, he gets to control the shape and size of his plants and his wife gets to enjoy the blooms every spring.

Shrubs to prune in May or June, once blooms are finished:

• Rhododendron

• Camellia

• Heather, simply give a light trim to remove old flower heads

• Spring flowering Clematis, shear once they have flowered

• Lilac, most important is to deadhead spent blossoms

• Flowering Quince, pruning after flowering forms short flower bearing spurs

Tip of the Month – Fertilizing Wisteria

One of our customers told us a story about his Wisteria after having fertilized it with a combination fertilizer containing Nitrogen. The Nitrogen caused the Wisteria to only produce green foliage, no flowers. They learned the hard way that to get flowers, a Phosphorous fertilizer should have been used instead.

Pruning can also be used to encourage your Wisteria’s flower production. Prune the new growth in summer back to six inches every two weeks to stimulate lateral branches that will become flowering spurs next year.