Top tips for pruning flowering shrubs

Whether it’s to rejuvenate overgrown bushes or to maintain plenty of healthy blooms throughout the year, pruning plays a vital part in many gardeners’ calendars. Wisely cutting branches and stems can help with both displaying a flowering shrub to its best advantage and ensuring that it blooms better later on.

The best place to cut a stem

Where a bud is visible, prune just three to four millimetres above it, to prevent leaving a long ‘snag’ which could die or encourage disease. For a clean cut on young stems, use Bypass Pruners from Wilkinson Sword which have a cutting diameter of up to 22mm.

Cut any dead or old branches from the base of the plant to encourage strong new growth. If more force is needed, use Ratchet Loppers which will provide greater leverage and reduce effort for the user. Where stems are crossing over or growing too close together, remove one to allow the other space – also eliminating the risk of them rubbing together which could cause damage to the bark or disease.

When to prune

For plants that flower in the summer or autumn, the best time to prune them is in late winter or early spring – ready for the year ahead. Spring bloomers will fare best with a good prune after their flowers begin to die. Herbaceous perennials should be cut in the late winter and can be taken down to ground level, leaving the clump of leaves at the base.

Different pruning techniques

‘Pinching’ is the mildest type of pruning and is exactly what it sounds like – using your fingers or a pair of scissors to pinch off small amounts of vegetation at the tips of branches. For branches that need more severe pruning, use Wilkinson Sword Classic Bypass Pruners to shorten branches or stems back to a good bud. For overcrowded bushes or those with dead branches, thin out entire stems all the way to the main branch, trunk or the soil line.

By following these tips, gardeners will ensure they receive the best chance of beautiful, healthy blooms and branches, which will brighten up any garden year after year.

For more information, visit https://wilkinsonsword-tools.co.uk/.

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Wilkinson Sword Classic Bypass Pruners – RRP £19.99

Wilkinson Sword Ratchet Loppers – RRP £42.99

Further information on products is available on the Wilkinson Sword website at https://wilkinsonsword-tools.co.uk/

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Editors notes

Wilkinson Sword's mission is to provide gardening tools of premium quality and performance that help make gardening easier and more enjoyable! Reflecting 100 years of cutting excellence, the gardening tools collection comprises highly engineered quality products, including pruners, shears, loppers, stainless steel garden tools as well as a range of axes and multi-tools. Every product in the range is put through rigorous quality tests to ensure the high-quality design, durability and strength expected from this trusted brand. Every product comes with the reassuring stamp of a 10-year guarantee.