Routine maintenance of your shrubs and trees is one of the best ways to create a pristine, inviting outdoor living space in your yard. A carefully-maintained landscape that includes well-pruned trees can increase the property value of your home. Precise pruning can also help your plants and shrubs thrive, attracting potential customers if you have commercial property.
That’s why you have invested so much thought and care into your landscape design. You may have even hired a professional to help you create and maintain your lawn and landscape.
After putting much time and energy into turning your landscape into an extension of your home or business, don’t let pruning mistakes detract from the potential your yard or grounds have to be a beautiful outdoor oasis.
Pruning plants is a necessary task, and it can even be a pleasant one. But without an understanding of the different types of pruning, what to prune, and when, it can be a daunting chore, and it can even damage your plants. The Naperville pruning experts with Ware Landscaping can help you manage plant growth safely. Contact us at (630) 885-6370 to learn more about our pruning services.
Why Pruning Helps Plants Thrive
Pruning is vital for maintaining the vitality and health of your plants. Branches that are damaged, dying, diseased, or dead will place undue stress on your plants if they are not removed. These branches need to be pruned to enable plants to repair themselves and to restore their vitality without depriving them of the energy they need to heal.
Pruning and trimming trees in a certain way can encourage flowering and fruiting and direct the growth of a tree. Pruning also helps control the size of shrubs or berry plants. When it comes to the trees and shrubs in your outdoor space, pruning should be done to cultivate healthy plants.
One pruning tip is to remove your trees’ water sprouts and suckers at ground level. If left to grow, these will weaken the tree and deprive the primary tree trunk of necessary nutrients. Pruning sprouts and suckers will help a tree establish one dominant trunk, enabling it to be strong enough to endure powerful winds and storms.
Prune trees to reduce any threat of disease while encouraging foliage growth by opening up a tree’s canopy to let in fresh air and sunlight. Resist the urge to force a tree into a desired shape or form. Trees that are allowed to grow naturally will take a shape that can process light optimally.
However, you can train a shrub or tree to take on specific shapes, to an extent, by cutting back lateral branches. If damage from wind or storms causes open areas, you can prune lateral branches to fill in the gaps. You may also need to prune branches that are encroaching on neighboring property.
Take the time to learn a plant’s natural growth habits and encourage growth in that direction. For safety reasons, however, there may be times when you may have to compromise the natural growth habits of a plant.
For example, when branches could cause damage to structures on your property or could come into contact with power lines, these branches should be removed. Always hire a professional to remove branches growing in these conditions, because they know how to prune them safely.
Sometimes, you can avoid safety hazards altogether when you use proper pruning procedures. Pruning correctly will create and maintain a strong tree structure, and eliminate safety hazards such as low growing branches near high traffic areas like a driveway or sidewalk.
When to Prune Plants
Prune flowering shrubs and trees to induce plants to grow more branches, which will increase the size and amount of flowers produced. You can do this by pinching the heads off budding plants before they begin to bloom.
Throughout the growing season, budding plants can be cut back multiple times. After blooming, the plants can be pruned again to encourage the production of new flowers. Whether your plant is perennial or an annual, a little early season pruning can make all the difference between a plant that is simply surviving and one that thrives.
For fruit trees, pruning should be performed annually. To encourage fruit production, late winter is the best time to prune your fruit trees. Prune excess wood from fruit trees to immerse developing fruit in sunlight. Allowing light to penetrate the entire plant makes a difference in the size and flavor of a tree’s fruit.
The best pruning practices focus on the health of the plant first, and aesthetics second. By removing branches that rub together, any branch stubs, and dead, damaged, or diseased branches, the entire tree can continue to grow strong and healthy.
Avoid These Pruning Mistakes
It’s a common misconception that all you need to prune the plants in your yard is a pruning saw or a chain saw. As a professional landscaping business, we see more trees destroyed or killed every year from pruning mishaps than we do pests or disease. Avoid these pruning mistakes to ensure a landscape full of hearty plants:
- Don’t top a tree. Topping trees creates a weak point in the plant, making it more vulnerable to damage and broken branches. You can thin out the tree, however, by pruning some of the larger branches found on the inside.
- Don’t prune to control the plant. Attempting to manipulate the height or size of a berry plant or fruit tree through pruning can destroy the plant’s natural shape or disrupt its growth habit, and should be avoided whenever possible. Do thin your tree and prune to accentuate its natural shape instead of forcing a plant or topping a tree when it’s trying to mature in size.
- Don’t prune plants unless you understand the difference between heading cuts and thinning cuts. The heading is a type of pruning that involves cutting off part of one branch to produce a stronger branch and to stimulate the growth of more offshoots from that branch. Thinning is a type of pruning that removes a branch at its point of origin, which may be a side branch, the main trunk, or even right at the ground. Heading cuts prompt new growth while thinning cuts inhibit new growth.
- Do not prune at the convenience of the pruner. Prune instead at a time when the branches need pruning to enable the plant to best repair itself without damaging it or draining it of the energy it needs.
Why hire a lawn care service professional for pruning?
A lot of people enjoy tending to their property and even find pruning pleasant. But if you don’t have the time to prune when your plants need the care, or you don’t know how to avoid weak points in plants and encourage flowering and fruiting, you may end up doing more harm when trimming your trees and plants than good.
If you plan to do the pruning yourself, remember that proper care involves time, labor, and an investment in quality pruning equipment like shears, snips, and scissors. Neglecting to prune with the right tools at the right time can result in trees and berry plants that become overgrown, and are susceptible to pests, disease, and other threats. In the case of fruit trees, overgrowth results in reduced fruit production too.
Most home or business owners simply do not have the equipment, experience, or time to prune correctly. By opting to hire a landscaping company for your property’s pruning needs, you can save yourself the stress, time, and energy of trying to do it correctly yourself.
Why Hire Ware Landscaping?
At Ware Landscaping, our experienced team of professionals works hard to earn and maintain an outstanding reputation among our customers. We are committed to optimizing the aesthetics and functionality of every property we are hired to care for.
Our goal is to make your dream property appearance a reality by providing expert lawn care services that combine landscape maintenance and proper pruning. Our founder, Mike Ware, and his team also help businesses and homeowners in Naperville, Chicago, and the surrounding areas with drainage solutions, exterior light installation, lawn mowing, and weed prevention as well.
If your goal is to have a vibrant outdoor space that turns heads, we are excited to discuss how we can help you accomplish that. Ware Landscaping is confident that our work will exceed your expectations. When you hire our landscaping professionals, you choose premier services from a family-owned and operated business that is passionate about providing excellent customer service.
Contact the Ware Landscaping Team
At Ware Landscaping, our team does more than just take the hassle of lawn care off your hands. We are committed to improving your quality of life, and we do that in many ways, from building outdoor kitchens to creating a stunning patio for you to enjoy.
Contact us to learn more about our services and why so many businesses and homeowners have trusted us for over a decade with their yard and landscaping needs. Call us at (630) 885-6370 today.
