Coordinate Garden and Landscape Pruning with the Bloom Cycles of Your Plants

With the winter season essentially in the rear view mirror, property owners are anxiously awaiting the return of the spring growing season for their lawns and gardens.  There is a distinct aura to the reappearance of green grass and buds/blooms on plants, shrubs, and trees – and this also means that the time has come for home gardeners and professional landscapers to begin their outdoor spring maintenance activities.

Among the many aspects of spring property maintenance is that of pruning, an activity that is essential to keeping plants healthy, productive, and attractive.  Effective pruning techniques can help to accomplish these overall goals in many different ways, including:

• Promoting greater flower production
• Enhancing leaf colour and stem colour
• Improving plant shape and appearance
• Maintaining more compact height or spread
• Removing diseased, dead, or damaged wood
• Rejuvenating old or overgrown shrubs/bushes.

While it would certainly be more convenient/more time-efficient to perform all garden and landscape pruning at the same time, it is important to note that spring pruning must not be done universally as it may in fact be detrimental to the bloom cycle of certain plants – knowledge of bloom cycles is fundamental to determining which species should or should not be pruned in the early spring.

A key differentiating factor would be whether plants bloom on old wood or new wood.  This can be delineated as follows:

• Spring-flowering plants (i.e. February-June) bloom on stems from the previous year, which in turn is said to be old wood.  The ideal time to prune these plants would be immediately after they bloom; this will allow buds to form throughout the summer and fall in preparation for blooming again next spring.
• When plants flower in summer or fall, their blooms are appearing on stems that have grown during the current year, or on new wood.  These are the plants that should be pruned in the early spring (before late May/early June), to promote new stem growth and produce an abundance of flowers later in the year.

When plants and shrubs are pruned properly and in concert with their respective bloom cycles, it can certainly enhance the health and aesthetic appeal of a property.  And while pruning can undoubtedly be performed by a home gardener or a do-it-yourself property owner, it can become a rather arduous process depending on the number and variety of plants that require such timely attention.

As a result, property owners may prefer to capitalize on the services of a professional landscaping company like Landcare to ensure that their garden and landscape pruning needs are addressed in an appropriate and time-sensitive manner.

Integrate Garden and Landscape Pruning into a Full Property Maintenance Plan

Garden and landscape pruning is one of the many seasonal maintenance services offered by the specialists from Landcare.  These pruning services can be incorporated into a full property maintenance plan that would consist of:

• Spring Clean-Up: debris removal; lawn and garden preparation; pruning
• Summer Maintenance: weekly lawn and bi-weekly garden care; pruning
• Fall Clean-Up: preparing lawns, gardens, perennials for winter dormancy

These services are available to the owners and managers of various types of properties, including:

• Private Residences
• Commercial Centres
• Multi-unit Residential
• Industrial Complexes
• Recreational Facilities
• Municipal Buildings

For your garden and landscape pruning needs as well as the comprehensive maintenance of your property from spring through fall, call the landscaping specialists from Landcare today at 416-410-0320 to request a no-obligation consultation.