Snip and tuck

It is now time to prune and with the right tools and correct information, pruning can be easy.

Think of it as the cut-back that rejuvenates plants and prepares them for a summer of healthy growth, glorious blooms or fabulous fruit.

Pruning is a mystery for most gardeners and yet it need not be.

July and early August is pruning time and not just the roses. It’s also time to cut back hydrangeas and fruit trees.

Pruning brings light and sunshine into the garden warming the soil and stimulating growth from the roots in the ground up.

Lime Sulphur and Steriseal are pruning essentials

Most plants need some form of pruning at some stage to stimulate new growth, flowers or to limit size. In nature this happens with frost, hail, fire or strong winds. At home this task is one that lets you put your own stamp on your garden. Sharp secateurs or a long-handled lopper will make pruning easy.

Roses

Roses require winter pruning to rejuvenate them for best flowering during the summer. Cut back stems by about two thirds. Remove old, dead, diseased and spindly growth. Seal the cuts with Steriseal to prevent die back and spray the plants with Lime Sulphur diluted 10 to 1 to clear out fungal spores and scale pests. Fertilise the plants with BioOcean, an organic fertiliser, to produce strong growth and good colour roses next summer.

Rose Burning Sky

Iceberg roses sprout from old wood, if they have grown too large and untidy cut them right back to short stems. If you want them to become large shrubs you can prune them very lightly.

Climbers are best not cut back, just tipped as they need to be fully out-grown to flower best. Cutting them back would mean they need to re-grow to their full height before flowering again. Climbers are simply tidied up and if there are stems in the middle that are very old and woody and do not grow much anymore, one cuts them out. More important is to tie or weave the shoots onto the structure they are being trained up on.

Working in compost around the roots and loosening the soil after pruning improves the rose’s performance during the season immensely. The most important thing to remember is that one cannot prune roses wrongly and that it is actually very easy. There really is nothing to it.

Prune Hydrangeas to get better blooms

The flowering of hydrangeas for Christmas can be controlled by when you prune them. Cut back now to get the best results. When you look at your hydrangea there are young, slender growths of the previous summer reaching up from the base of the plant. At the end of this stem there is a large bud. This bud, in the next growing season, will produce a short shoot and then a flower. Do not prune this stem.

There are also older shoots two seasons old with a cluster of large buds a short distance down the stem, usually four to six in number. These, if left, will each produce a flower the following summer. All that is needed is to prune the stem back to just above the cluster of buds. Older, heavier stems of two or more seasons will also be found, carrying several dead flower heads. These should be pruned back hard to the base of the plant to stimulate new vigorous growth the following season.

Once pruned feed your hydrangeas with agricultural lime, organic BioOcean fertiliser and mulch with compost for pink flowers. For blue flowers just feed with BioOcean and mulch with a layer acid compost.

Fruit tree pruning

With the revival of fruit trees in most gardens there is a whole new generation of gardeners that need a guide on how to prune deciduous fruit tree. July is also the month to prune fruit trees to ensure a plentiful supply of fruit during the summer months. Besides controlling size, the most important reason to prune a fruit tree is to promote blossom, thereby increasing fruit quantity and quality. The method of pruning fruit trees in their first couple of years is basically the same for all deciduous fruit.

When pruning a one-year-old tree, remove all side growth and prune the central stem back to knee height. This may seem rather drastic, but this early severe pruning is a good foundation for a successful future. During the next season of growth, many branches will develop. When pruning a two-year-old tree, identify three or four good stems which will give the tree a cup-shaped structure and prune these stems to a height of 75cm and remove all other growth.

Pruning a more mature tree, involves selecting strong shoots growing from each of the main branches and cutting them back to produce a vase shape and removing any spindly growth. Once pruned, feed the trees with BioOcean around the drip line of the tree and spray with Lime Sulphur diluted five to one to prevent disease.

Remember do not spray trees that have buds or blossoms on, they are the early peaches and spraying blossoms will reduce your crop.

The addition of the organic fertiliser helps plants grow stronger cell walls which means, less insect susceptibility and more importantly, better taste on edibles and better colour and fragrance in flowers.

Information information by Eckards Garden Pavilion.