Renewal Pruning Overgrown Shrubs

Don’t let overgrown, misshapen, poor flowering and unhealthy shrubs ruin the beauty of your landscape. A little careful pruning can turn lackluster shrubs into landscape beauties.

Suckering shrubs like this red twig dogwood continually produce new stems.  Removing older stems with renewal pruning allows you to control the plant size and shape as well as encourage new controlled growth.

Start by removing a few older, thicker, stems to ground level. Use a lopper to extend your reach, a pruning saw for larger stems and a reciprocating saw for extra power and narrow spaces.

Reduce the size if needed by shortening longer stems. Make cuts just above an outward facing healthy bud or back to a shorter side shoot that’s growing away from the center of the plant. This directs the new growth outward and that means less pruning in the future.

Repeat yearly for three or four years on overgrown plants.

A bit more information: Wait to prune spring flowering shrubs until right after they flower. That way you can control their size and still enjoy the spring blossoms.