Spring Pruning Made Easy

You look at your ornamental trees and shrubs and feel like they need pruning, but where do you begin. The first pruning cuts made should be to remove dead or dying twigs and small limbs. For some, it's easier to wait until the tree or shrub has leafed out in order to more easily recognize what is dead, without leaf. If all you do is remove the dead and dying twigs and small branches, you will improve the esthetics and health of the tree or shrub. The next pruning cuts that you make are to remove branches that are crossing and rubbing. Look for branches that cross over each other, especially branches that might be rubbing. In a thick shrub, rubbing branches might be common. But in trees and shrubs that want to be a little more open, rubbing branches can result in bark damage and then a vector for disease or pest. In the next blog we will discuss a little trick for knowing the proper place to prune branches to.