Garden plants to prune now to ensure ‘a good show of flowers’ for next year

Pruning is one of the most important gardening jobs, done throughout the year to help promote flowering and the health of plants, flowers and trees.

However, it is important that gardeners do not prune all types of plants at the same time as different plants need pruning at different times.

If certain plants are cut at the wrong time, this can cause permanent damage to the crop.

Morris Hankinson, founder and managing director at Hopes Grove Nurseries There are some plants that should be pruned now before the end of the month.

1. Spring/early season bushes

When many garden plants are waking up and starting to grow, the expert explained that some shrubs like forsythia are already well out of the starting blocks and in full bloom.

He said: “So by June they’ve finished flowering, and it’s time to prune them to ensure a good flower show next spring. Shrubs such as forsythia, weigela, snow mound spiraea, deutzia and amelanchier should be cut now.”

Morris claimed it’s easy because next year’s flowers will appear in this year’s young green shoots, so leave these young shoots and cut out the old branches that had flowers this year.

At the same time, shrubs such as holly and willow grown for their colorful winter stems can be cut back to ground level if they are not already. The expert said: “The new young stems that will grow during the summer are the colorful stems for next winter.”

2. Roses

Gardeners will find that these will be blooming beautifully in their gardens now. However, to keep them in bloom it is worth removing them regularly (ie cutting them very finely).

Morris said: “That way they won’t produce buds and they won’t put energy into making seeds, instead they will produce more flowers during the summer.”

3. Fence

These can be cut once a year in the second half of summer and at that time hopefully they will not grow any more. The upside is that gardeners are likely to have a lot of tough wood shavings to get rid of.

The gardening guru said: “Cut them in June and there will be much less and it will be soft and great for adding to your compost heap, or at least much easier to put in your brown wheelie bin .”

4. Wisteria

When this plant has finished growing (usually by the end of June), Morris recommends simply cutting back the long new shoots to six leaves to leave spurs, these spurs will provide next year’s flowers .

He said: “This will really clean up your wisteria and any trailing stems can be tied in at the same time. After Christmas the second stage of pruning takes place, all you have to do is shorten the spur to three buds and it will flower beautifully.”

5. Winter/spring flowering clematis

Clematis armandii is a “great winter flowering variety”, but after flowering they can look a bit scraggy and this is a good time to clean them up.

Morris noted that these flowers need no special pruning next winter – this is just “cosmetic hair”.

When it comes to clematis montana, when their flowers fade is a “great time” to clean them. The expert explained: “Again, it’s quite cosmetic, they tend to grow very quickly so the overgrown ones need to be treated. The good news is that they respond well to drastic pruning, so don’t be afraid to get stuck if it’s overgrown.”