Pruning is a crucial practice in the care of flowering plants and trees, often referred to as "seven minutes, three points cut" — an essential technique that helps shape the plant and enhance its beauty. Proper pruning ensures even distribution of branches, conserves nutrients, reduces energy waste, and controls excessive growth. It also helps maintain the plant’s vigor, prevents legginess, and promotes a neat, elegant appearance, ultimately leading to more flowers and fruits.
Pruning can be done throughout the year, but it is most effective during winter and summer. Summer pruning takes place during the growing season, starting from when new shoots appear in spring until the end of autumn. During this time, only light and partial cuts are recommended. Dead or broken branches should be removed to keep the plant looking tidy and healthy. Winter pruning, on the other hand, occurs during dormancy, typically after the last growth of the season in late autumn and before new buds begin to sprout in early spring. This is the time for more intensive pruning, focusing on thinning out dense branches and shortening longer ones based on the specific needs of each plant species.
For spring-flowering plants like plum, peach, forsythia, lilac, and redbud, flower buds form on last year's growth. Therefore, heavy pruning in winter should be avoided, as it may remove these buds and reduce the following year’s blooms. Instead, light pruning should be done about one to two weeks after flowering to encourage the growth of new lateral shoots that will develop into flowering branches the next season.
In contrast, plants that bloom on current-year growth, such as hibiscus, poinsettia, jasmine, and crape myrtle, benefit from winter pruning. This encourages the development of more new shoots, resulting in more flowers and fruits in the coming year.
For foliage plants, the timing of pruning depends on indoor temperature. If the room is cool, it’s best to prune them before moving them indoors to reduce their size and save space. In warmer conditions, pruning can be delayed until the next growing season to avoid stimulating unwanted growth during winter.
Some plants, like conifers, have weak regrowth ability, so they should not be heavily pruned. Vining plants usually don’t require much trimming, except for removing old or overly dense branches. Trees such as magnolia, cherry blossoms, and camellias generally don’t need large cuts; pruning is mainly focused on thinning and shortening.
Thinning involves removing dense, crossing, leggy, weak, diseased, or dead branches to improve air circulation and light penetration, which helps prevent disease. Short cutting, on the other hand, involves cutting back the tips of branches to stimulate the growth of lateral shoots, helping to create a balanced canopy and more abundant flowering.
When making cuts, ensure the surface is smooth and the cut is made about 1 cm above a lateral bud. Cutting too close can damage the bud, while cutting too far away leaves an unsightly stub. Also, always leave the top lateral bud facing outward so that new growth extends outward, maintaining a neat and attractive shape.
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