Growing for Success | The great winter chop begins

That’s almost halfway through the month already.

That means it is almost halfway through winter.

Bring on spring.

It is easy to see that I am not a winter person. Who is? Unless of course it is a cold, frosty morning followed by a sunny day.

I suppose, though, if we wanted same-same boring seasons, we would live elsewhere.

But I do think we should look at making winter at least a month shorter.

For all the gardeners with itchy fingers who have been hanging out to get into the garden to start their winter pruning, you can stop sharpening your secateurs and loppers and start pruning to your heart’s content.

Most deciduous plants are now dormant enough to prune.

But I would still put off pruning Japanese maples until just before bud burst.

And all blossom trees, like flowering cherries, crab apples and magnolias, should be pruned after flowering.

Winter pruning is carried out for different reasons for different plants.

With fruit trees, it is to get the right balance between foliage and fruit, getting the fruit set in the right areas, as well as shaping the tree overall.

For some other plants, it is just a good chance to clean them up, get them back into shape, control their size and remove unwanted growth while the plants are dormant.

With plants like roses, the main reason we prune them is that roses flower on first-year and second-year timber.

So the more new season’s growth on the plant, the more flowers and the longer flowering period you will have.

Secondly, if we let them go, roses would become quite wild and unruly, putting their new growth on top of the old growth.

The plants would then become large and unruly, with most of the flowers up high, out of reach.

When pruning, we are trying to replace the older timber in the plant with new growth from down low, close to the crown of the plant, with the aim of rotating the replacement of the timber about every three years.

For your winter pruning, you are going to need a good sharp pair of secateurs, preferably bypass secateurs.

These are the ones where the blade passes by the anvil and does not strike on to the middle of it.

Your secateurs do not have to be expensive, but they do need to be kept sharp and well-adjusted.

Bypass secateurs are more suitable for pruning soft tissue plants like roses and younger soft growth on harder timber plants.

When using bypass secateurs, you should try to keep the blade side of the secateurs facing the part of the plant remaining, with the anvil striking against the timber to be removed.

This limits the damage at the site of the cut, with the bruise being left on the part of the branch being removed.

A pair of sharp, long-handled bypass loppers and a sharp pruning saw will also come in handy.

Using these is far more preferable than taking multiple goes at cutting through bigger branches with your smaller secateurs.

While pruning principles remain the same for most plants, where to cut, what to prune to, and what to leave will vary depending on the type of plant you are pruning and what you are trying to achieve.

If you are unsure about how to go about what you are pruning, drop by the garden centre, and we can give you a quick demonstration.

That little bit of extra knowledge can make a big difference in your pruning outcomes.

Rose pruning is the main pruning job that we get asked about each year.

But it really is probably the easiest of all winter pruning, if you follow a few basic steps.

Start by removing 40-50 per cent of the plant’s height, just cutting away without paying much attention to where you are cutting.

This solves the biggest mistake most people make when pruning roses — not pruning hard enough.

It also makes it a lot easier to see what you have left to work with, now that the bulk has gone.

We are now looking for strong, healthy young stems that we will use for next season’s growth.

So, start by removing, in order: weak and diseased stems, then stems that grow across other stems, older stems, and finally, crowded growth.

You should now be left with the strongest and healthiest stems on the plant.

From these, select up to about six to leave for the spring growth.

Prune these remaining stems down to four or five buds high from the crown of the plant, choosing an outward-facing bud for your final cut.

The final cut should be made at about the thickness of the stem above the bud, cutting on an angle with the bud on the longest side, and angled so that the finished surface of the cut will shed water.

When looking for buds to cut to, they are located at every leaf scar on the stem.

This is the mark left on the stem where a leaf was once attached.

The new spring growth will come from the top few buds on the stem.

Later growth will emerge lower on the stems.

This lower new growth will form the stems that we can hopefully use next year.

Once you have finished pruning, seal any large cuts with a wound sealant.

Then spray the plant down with lime sulphur to give you a head-start on next season’s pests and diseases.

The same principles and techniques apply to pruning standard roses as they do to bush roses.

But if you are pruning climbing or weeping roses, it is probably easier to call in to the garden centre, and we can give you a quick run-through, as there are a few differences that will need explaining.