Jim Harrington Garden Designs, well respected landscape designer and horticuturist.

PRUNING:
This is an important aspect of landscape maintenance with pruning techniques based on individual plants growth habits. Whether you need severe pruning to get the landscape back into scale or to simply maintain a desire look professional pruning will result in healthier, better looking plants. We prune trees up to 15 feet, shrubs, perennials, and also fruit trees. All pruning techniques are discussed before hand so you understand the reasons and results of the pruning process.

Pruning techniques: Thinning, Severe Pruning, Internal Pruning, Shearing(Very Limited), Shaping, Dead Branch Removal, Training.

Thinning: This pruning technique is used to reduce the size or overall thickness of a plant. It can mean removal of the largest/oldest branches as with forsythia or it can mean removal of smaller unproductive branches like on a rose or crepe myrtle. In either case the plant will be more open and thinner.

Severe Pruning: This is pruning to rejuvenate old shrubs or to reduce the size of overgrown shrubs. It is important to realize that most of the new growth will occur within 6 inches of the pruning cut.

Two things will be noticed. First most plants will not fill out at the bottom unless pruned at the bottom. The second observation is they will grow back quickly if pruned in February do to the mature root system. Some additional pruning will be needed to develop the desired shape during the following summer.

Internal Pruning: This type of pruning is to maintain a shaped plant that is somewhat informal. The benefit here is it is usually only done once per year, and when you are though it does not look like it was just pruned.

Shearing: Typically we only shear boxwoods. Shearing other plants usually just increases maintenance and we can reach the same results with other techniques of pruning.

Shaping: This is when we have a pretty good looking plant with a few stray branches that are not in harmony with the rest of the plant. This is performed on a as needed basis.

Training: Many plants especially vines and fruit trees need training to get the desired result. Some plants are pruned to get to grow in specific directions and some can be moved around and tied. Each plant is trained based on its own growth habit and the desired result.

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