Procedures for Pruning Your Evergreens
Evergreens are a perfect plant for you to grow around your home. They are constantly beautiful, whether in the heat of summer or covered with the fresh winter snow. Moreover, they provide mounds of cool shade and quiet comfort throughout the course of the year. They are quite easy to care for as well. One of the most important steps in caring for your evergreens is regular pruning. This can, though, be quite intimidating for the first-timer. As a result, reading a few instructions like these certainly can’t hurt your chances of doing a great job with your evergreens.
If you are a bit skittish about completing the pruning job yourself, the chances are quite good that a wonderful lawn and garden company exists in your area, and one phone call will make them happy to complete the process for you. You will, of course, have to lay out a bit of cash to have someone else do it for you, but it will be money well spent if you are uncomfortable with the steps below.
The first step to a successful evergreen pruning session is to pay attention to the seasons. As perfect as evergreens are, there is a wrong and a right time to prune them, and pruning them at the wrong time of year could spell disaster for your plant. The best time to prune is just after winter. Remember that pruning too early can cause your plant to freeze and die back, so make sure that you do your pruning after the last frost.
Start the actual pruning by combing through your plant. Pull the branches apart and search for any dead wood. If it looks diseased, get rid of it. Even if is only a smaller twig, getting rid of it would be a good idea at this stage of the game. Once you’ve clipped the wood, look carefully at the remaining wood where you just cut. Does it look alive? Evergreen wood has a green ring just under the bark if it is alive. If all you see at this step is black or brown, the wood is dead. If it has started to discolor, it is ill, and it would be best to further trim it back to prevent illness and decay from spreading to your entire plant.
The next step in the process is to get rid of any Medusa head branches. Anywhere that you have lots of twigs coming out of the same branch head, it may begin to look like the Greek mythology character of Medusa. As a result, clipping out the undesirable branches may prove a better overall look to your evergreens.
Now you are ready to get rid of any new growth that crosses the trunk of the plant. This will help air to circulate throughout the plant. Be sure, as you are trimming your evergreens, to make sure all of your cuts are made toward the trunk. This will increase your growth rate after the pruning.
Now you are ready to start the thinning process. Get rid of all of the extra branches in the plant. You want to be able to see daylight through the tree or bush, and getting rid of excess branch material will increase your chances of doing so. Daylight hitting the center of the plant will help the plant to thrive for years to come, as the center of your plant needs light as much as any other part of it does.
If you are working with a bush, you will want to reduce its size by at least one half. Keep in mind that growth will occur quickly after the pruning process has occurred, so don’t be shy about trimming quite a bit off of the plant.
No matter whether you have a bush or a tree on your hands, you need to be sure to get under the plant with a rake. Piles of debris like old sticks or leaves can be a haven for insects who want to destroy the very plant you are working with, so it is essential to get rid of the debris to keep your plant healthy throughout the course of the year.
The final step in the process is to place some mulch around the plant to increase the water intake of the plant without increasing your water bill. Pruning your evergreens isn’t a difficult procedure if you carefully follow these instructions.
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...