In this video, This Old House landscape contractor Roger Cook shows the right way to prune shrubs.
Steps:
1. Prune shrubs with bypass hand pruners, not electric hedge trimmers.
2. Electric trimmers cut foliage and stems all on the same plane, which causes green growth on the outside but nothing except brown, bare branches on the inside of the shrub.
3. At that point, there’s no way to trim back the shrub to control its size because you’ll remove all the green foliage.
4. Bypass hand pruners provide a much better, albeit slower, way to prune shrubs.
5. Carefully cut branches just above a bud, which helps a plant heal and grow properly.
6. Prune branches at different depths to create holes into the shrub that let in sunlight. Soon the shrub will be green on the outside and inside.
Pro Tip: Roger Cook, This Old House landscape contractor, advises a measured approach: “I don’t take off more than a third of the shrub’s branches in any year. You can always come back and prune again.”
When using bypass pruners, always orient the sharp blade toward the branch you’re keeping to make a clean cut. If you turn the pruners the wrong way, you’ll end up with a crush injury on the stem that won’t heal well or grow out properly. And never cut in the middle of a stem — always make your cut just above a live leaf or bud, which will heal nicely and put out new growth.
