NC Cooperative Extension Service

Our mission is to help people improve the quality of their lives through
research-based information and informal educational opportunities focused on issues and needs.


Master Gardenersm Column for the Week of March 7, 2005
Peggy Meinzer
Brunswick County Extension Master Gardenersm Volunteer

PRUNING

The art of pruning is as old as the history of civilized man. From ancient China to Egypt’s Valley of Kings to the vineyards and orchards of the Holy Land, each has created its own style of pruning. In America, the early formal gardens at Mount Vernon and Monticello used box hedges and native plants in traditional English style. North Carolina’s historical Orton Plantation and Airlie Gardens display unique formal planting patterns with winding paths, benches, reflecting ponds, rose trellises, and sculpture. Color grouping, variety of size, texture, and planned blooming period are enhanced by the pruning and thinning of plants.

Today pruning is still considered necessary to maintain order, direct growth, increase production, keep plants healthy, and meet aesthetics tastes. Pruning can also be practical, preventing a tree from growing lopsided, thinning out a shrub to create more light and air circulation, correcting disease, and repairing storm-ravaged branches. Plants vary in their need for pruning. Some need lots every year, some need only a little in a lifetime.

Think of your garden as your exterior home. Use pruning to control that jungle of tangled, overgrown green into simplified forms and pleasing arrangements. Heading back keeps a plant dense and sturdy by cutting around its entire shape. Thinning removes whole branches producing a taller, more open plant.

There are six basic styles of pruning. Hedges define space and can be irregular if trimmed into crisp shapes. Shrubs are textured space fillers and can be used informally or naturally. Borders divide shrubs and flowers from open garden space and can be severely clipped to form a pattern and edge or left to grow into soft lines. Vines can drape, sprawl, or be trained to grow up a variety of trellis shapes or walls. Topiary is garden sculpture using plants or vines trained into shapes that offer a touch of humor or dramatic focal point. Trees lend architectural lines, adding height, shade, texture, and sometimes beautiful blooms.

Each plant has its own characteristics. Before purchasing a plant, it is wise to study its growth habit before deciding upon its placement in your garden. Do yourself and your plants a big favor – plan ahead!

One of the obvious questions about pruning is, “When and how do I prune?” Most plants can be pruned almost any time of the year, but some need to be treated with special care, timing, and common sense. Immediately prune a plant part that is dead, dying, diseased, or damaged. Know when the plant flowers and on which kind of growth it flowers: current season shoots, wood from the previous year, or wood two or more years old. It is a good rule of thumb to prune after a plant has flowered and before it sets its buds for the next year. Use sharp and clean tools: shears, pruning knife, saw, or lopping shears.

There are gardening books available in garden shops, book stores, and your local library that deal with specific pruning instructions and even some guides that are devoted entirely to the art of pruning. If you require additional instructions regarding pruning of a particular plant, unique style of espalier, trellis form, formal garden hedging, etc., contact the Cooperative Extension Service for further information.

Send your gardening questions or comments to: Brunswick County Master Gardener Column, P.O. Box 109, Bolivia, NC 28422, or call (910) 253-2610. Enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope if requesting information or a reply. Answers may be printed in this column.

North Carolina State University and North Carolina A&T State University commit themselves to positive action to secure equal opportunity regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, religion, sex, age, or disability. In addition, the two Universities welcome all persons without regard to sexual orientation. North Carolina State University, North Carolina A&T State University, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and local governments cooperating.

For further information or assistance, please e-mail:
Charlie Spencer, Brunswick County Extension Master GardenersmVolunteer

Back to the Master Gardenersm News Column Page of the Brunswick County Center of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service.

Back to the Home Page of the Brunswick County Center of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service.

This site is maintained by Kathy Walters.
URL Address: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/brunswick/
Date Created 3/3/2005