Reasons to consider pruning your plants this spring

There are times when my normally laid back children can be very competitive. During a drive with their beloved Aunt Christie years ago, she introduced them to the game of “Yellow Car.” It involves enthusiastically yelling “YELLOW CAR!” if you see a yellow car while you are driving. The person who sees the most yellow cars before they get to their destination wins.

Over the years the kids have developed a complex series of rules that go along with this game – i.e. school buses count, but cars in dealership parking lots do not. At first I tried to compete with my kids but had recently come to the conclusion that I would never win a game of “Yellow Car.” I added it to the ever growing mental list of things that my kids did better than me.

While driving my kids to school this morning, we admired the beautiful spring blooming trees along our route. In an attempt to teach my kids the names of the trees, I invented the game “Redbud.” While it doesn’t have the complex rules of “Yellow Car,” it is the same basic concept.

“Redbud, Redbud, Redbud,” I yelled, while thoroughly enjoying the feeling of winning. “Mom, concentrate on driving,” Christopher pointed out. Darn, he’s right. Game over. Kids win again.

Pruning is a common spring gardening chore. When done correctly it can lead to increased flowers, neater appearance, and better plant health. When done incorrectly it can affect the shape, health, and flowers on plants for many years to come. This Gardener’s Forum will be the first of a two-part series on pruning.

Before pruning a plant, it is important to determine if it needs to be pruned. Reasons to consider pruning a plant could include:

To control the size of a plant:

Is a plant starting to cover the windows? Is it growing over the sidewalk? Depending on the type of shrub, you may be able to take off up to 1/3 of the height or width of the shrub.

An exception to this would be evergreen shrubs and trees. With certain evergreens such as yews, if you prune too much off, you will prune back to dead wood and the plant will not leaf out.

To remove diseased stems:

Dogwoods would be an example of a shrub that commonly has diseased stems that need to be removed.

To remove dead twigs:

As a general guideline, if a branch doesn’t have leaves by mid-June and other branches of the tree or shrub have leaves, that twig is probably dead. It should be pruned off. A way to check to see if there is life in the twig is to take your fingernail or a small knife and lightly scratch the bark of the twig. If it is green underneath the bark, that is a sign the branch is still alive; if it is brown underneath the bark, that portion of the branch is dead.

Summer blooming shrubs such as roses often benefit by spring pruning. Spirea is another shrub that may benefit from spring rejuvenation pruning.
It is important to determine the reason to prune before pruning. In the next column, I will discuss the best time to prune which shrubs and provide information regarding how much to prune.

As you are purchasing your annual flowers this year, I think it is important to be aware of a downy mildew, a disease new to Illinois that is affecting impatiens.

Impatiens with downy mildew can have a downy-like fungus growth on the underside of the leaves, giving a downward curling and yellowish cast to the leaves. The disease can overwinter in the soil and be present for many years.

If you are considering planting impatiens, I would suggest using them in containers, not planting them in the soil. New Guinea Impatiens have been shown to be highly resistant to this disease, though.

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