Easy Pruning Guide Graphic

As you can see from the picture above occasionally our perennials and shrubs get out of control. Sometimes you simply have to prune them so you can walk on the sidewalk. The tricky part is knowing when to prune so that you are not sacrificing your beautiful blooms. This article contains a handy pruning guide to help you decide the best time to prune.

Easy Pruning Guide Graphic

Yard and garden clean up seem to be the first order of business once the weather turns nice. Raking up all the debris and pruning out spent perennials, dead or broken branches are usually top on the list. There's something very satisfying about pruning. It tidies up the garden and give your plants the maintenance they need to start producing new growth and in some cases new blooms.

Take a look at this Hydrangea 'limelight'. I cut tons of blooms from it last summer and as you can see there are still so many left. Giving this one a good pruning helps promote this awesome flower production and since this type of hydrangea (paniculata) blooms on new wood you can dig in and prune in late winter or early spring.

If this was a shrub that blooms in the spring like forsythia or azalea I would wait until after it finished blooming before pruning.

Another great graphic that shows you how to prune your shrubs can be found on my friend Jill's blog in her article DIY Pruning Tools and Tips. I find visual graphics so much easier to understand, don't you?

The questions about when to do prune, which plants to prune, and how much to prune, is always a difficult one. To make your task a little simpler I've created a simple graphic quick pruning guide on some popular shrubs as a handy reference.