It can be hard to know when to prune certain plants, but August is a great time for many gardening jobs, including pruning
Pruning is a vital gardening task, and it’s not just carried out for looks alone.
Besides maintaining a neat garden, it can also help stimulate the plant to develop fresh blooms, particularly during the following growing season. It can be challenging to determine when to trim specific plants, but August presents an excellent opportunity for numerous gardening tasks, including pruning.
Helena Jones, a gardening expert and head of commercial at Hedges Direct, said: “For certain plants, the key time to prune isn’t winter; it’s summer. This can help encourage next year’s blooms, keep their shape tidy, or even do both. August is an ideal time to prune several deciduous, climbing, summer-flowering shrubs.”
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Not sure where to start? These are the plants to prune now, reports the Express.
1. Wisteria
For optimal results, wisteria should be trimmed twice annually – once in August to neaten it up and again in winter to promote abundant short, flowering spurs.
The expert said: “Just cut back all the strong new growth to five buds and remove any spent flower stalks from this year.”
2. Deciduous honeysuckle
The lengthy, trailing stems can be cut back now to three or four leaves, according to the expert. Ensure you remove older stems down to ground level to encourage fresh growth, too.
3. Jasmine
The expert said: “Cut back the spent flowered stems of summer-flowering jasmine to a strong side shoot lower down.”
4. Pyracantha
Once the primary framework of your trained pyracantha is established, cut back this year’s sideshoots in August. Ensure to halt just before a cluster of berries, which is usually two or three leaves up from the base.
5. Cotoneaster
According to the expert, you can now trim back the flowered branches of summer-flowering cotoneaster to half their length. She further stated that the oldest branches can be cut right back to the ground.
6. Rambling roses
Helena advised: “Remove a third of the oldest stems down to the ground, and then any weak, misplaced, dead, diseased or damaged growth. Tie in new, vigorous shoots ready for flowering next year.”
7. Hebe and lavender
August is an excellent time to prune lavender, trimming faded flowers and removing 2cm to 3cm of foliage. Be cautious not to cut too far into the plant, as lavender and hebe won’t grow back from old wood.
8. Hedges
The gardening guru added: “Unless you have a flowering hedge, August is the ideal time for cutting. The birds have finished nesting, and it’s early enough to avoid frost damage on freshly cut stems, but late enough that there won’t be much regrowth before winter.”