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For
example, azaleas set flowers during the previous summer, so prune them
after they flower. If you prune now, you’re removing flowers or buds
waiting to open.
The
proper pruning technique for these plants, after they bloom, is called
thinning. Thinning will encourage a balance growth that allows light to
penetrate and air to move inside the plant canopy. Plants with open
canopies have more flowers and fewer diseases.
Crape
myrtles, like most plants that flower in the summer, set flowers on the
current season’s growth. Prune these plants in late winter to early
spring.
If
you haven’t already done it, late March, once there are no more frosts
left for the winter, would be the best time to prune crape myrtles.
Roses
seem to like to be pruned. Look for buds with five leaflets pointing
toward the outside of the canopy — at the axis of this compound leaf
is the flower bud. So, the more often you prune, the more flowers you’ll
have.
In
the home orchard, pruning will help you establish and maintain
productive trees. One commercial muscadine grower told me that in the
year after she put some pruning coaching to work on her muscadines, she
had "tons of grapes." Proper pruning can make a huge
difference in yields.
Muscadines
can be pruned anytime they’re dormant. Vines pruned in late winter to
early spring are less likely to be damaged by cold. If you let grape
vines go unpruned, they tend to produce heavily every other year, but
the grapes will be inferior.
Fruit
trees must be trained in the early years to develop a productive
scaffold. Once the trees mature, prune to increase production and to
keep the overall tree vigorous. Pruning fruit trees is an art and a
science. Proper pruning will assure that the trees will stay healthy
while they produce plenty of fruit.
To
learn more about pruning fruit and landscape plants, contact your local
county extension office. |
