Hi all
First post so apologies if my question is a little daft.

As I am off for a few days, and the weather is looking decent, am I OK giving some of the shrubs I have acquired a decent prune. They are very well established (20 years or so) but have been left for a couple of years and so are quite over grown.

If I do not do it now then I may not get chance again till Easter
Thanks
Lee

leesug wrote:
Hi all
First post so apologies if my question is a little daft.

As I am off for a few days, and the weather is looking decent, am I OK
giving some of the shrubs I have acquired a decent prune. They are very
well established (20 years or so) but have been left for a couple of
years and so are quite over grown.

If I do not do it now then I may not get chance again till Easter
Thanks
Lee





Lee,

We had a nice day yesterday (70 degrees) and I did some pruning and
cleanup that I normally don't do until spring.

The first rule of pruning is to know the blooming habit of the plant.
Some bloom on the new growth, some bloom on the previous years growth,
some, it does not matter, you can cut them back to almost ground or any
level you cat to. With non-blooming shrubs it really doesn't matter and
deep pruning now (if you need to) with result in a quicker recovery when
the weather warms up.

Since you have well established shrubs you can cut them back a good
deal. A deep cut back may make them look fairly poor this year but you
are doing the cutback for the future and they will recover within a year
or so.
--
Bill R. (Ohio Valley, U.S.A)



To see pictures from my garden visit http://members.iglou.com/brosen

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On 12/28/2008 11:49 AM, leesug wrote:
Hi all
First post so apologies if my question is a little daft.

As I am off for a few days, and the weather is looking decent, am I OK
giving some of the shrubs I have acquired a decent prune. They are very
well established (20 years or so) but have been left for a couple of
years and so are quite over grown.

If I do not do it now then I may not get chance again till Easter
Thanks
Lee

It really depends on your climate. If killing frosts will occur after
the end of January, I wouldn't prune now. Where are you?

Today, I started pruning my roses. I did four of the 14 plants. As
soon as I finish the roses, I'll do my peach tree. I should be done
with all winter pruning in about two weeks. However, we get no snow and
rarely see serious frosts.

We haven't had a killing frost since January of 2006, and that was
unusual. We don't see weather that cold more than once in 10-15 years.
Even then, it was not cold enough to make winter pruning bad for
plants. It was only cold enough to be very uncomfortable for us humans
who tried to work in our gardens that week. I did have some damage in
my garden, but none of the plants that I had just pruned were affected.
Instead, the damage was on plants that I know not to prune until March
or April. It was also bad for local farmers who had citrus or avocado
orchards or who had planted strawberries for a late winter or early
spring crop.

--
David E. Ross
Climate: California Mediterranean
Sunset Zone: 21 -- interior Santa Monica Mountains with some ocean
influence (USDA 10a, very close to Sunset Zone 19)
Gardening pages at http://www.rossde.com/garden/