Pruning Your Deciduous Trees and Shrubs

Now is a good time to schedule tree trimmings before things leaf out.

You can see what you’re doing better, for starters. Late winter time is a great time to prune almost all trees, but there’s certain trees that it’s the best time to prune, like birch trees and oak trees. Those shut down really really late in the fall, so you never want to do hard pruning on those going into winter. It’s always better right now this time of year.

You are going to get some flower buds that come off when you’re trimming this time of year on plants like the magnolia that are set. It will be okay if it’s not a heavy trim. It is better to do the pruning even if you’re taking off some flower buds.

Rhododendrons and azaleas a lot of times are the same way, but they’re evergreen, so you can’t really see the branch structure better now than you will be able to see it later. So those we recommend you wait to prune until just right when it’s done blooming.

With the deciduous stuff, it’s easy to see what’s dead right now. You can tell the dead branches. Those are the first things that come off. The next set of branching that’s going to come off is anything that we call a crossing branch, where it grows back across the center of the plant.

When that happens we want everything to start from the center and grow out. Sometimes you can have a really big crossing branch. You never want to take more than 10 to 15 percent of the plant off. Sometimes it’s not even fixed in a single season. It’s something you’ll work on. But if you take a large branch out, remember new sunlight’s coming into that area and that plant will grow back out from the center like it’s supposed to.

Questions? Email us at [email protected] or call one of our two locations: Portage (330-499-0101) or Everhard (330-492-1243).