If you are interested in learning gardening stuff, please subscribe to my channel HERE.
Pruning means cutting or trimming the plant organs like branches, stems or even leaves for the sake of your plants health and sometimes to maintain plant shape and form. It is a very important task in gardening specially if you want your plants to perform well like to promote growth and flowering or fruiting. Another advantage of pruning is it allows you to remove the damaged or infected branches and leaves which can further spread and cause more damage.
In this Article, we will precisely look into many questions about plant pruning like:
a) When to prune which plants.
b) Types of Pruning
c) How to Prune and Why?
d) Pruning Tools
e) And many other concepts and tips on pruning.
PLANT SURGERY COMPARISON:
Before we proceed with these topics, first of all its important to know that pruning or cutting is actually wounding your plant. So doing it properly is really important. Pruning is actually a Plant Surgery similar to human or animal surgery, done either to save a plant from disease and also to make it look neat and good. Like the surgical wound, pruning also induces a wound or injury at the point of incision and this wound has to heal properly.
So Lets begin:
1. When to prune which plants? Let me start with a comparison. The best time to perform a surgery on a person is when they are in sleep, that’s during anaesthesia. This is the same for plants as well. As a general rule for most plants including flowering and fruiting plants they need to be pruned, specially hard pruning to be done while they are in a period of dormancy (that’s when they are asleep or inactive). This usually falls in late winter through early spring like in the month of January depending on your climatic zone. Another reason to perform this surgery in winter is the healing of wound is better in this cold season due to scientific reasons.
But some other plants need to be continuously pruned or trimmed I mean deadheaded or soft pruned, to maintain growth and flowering. We shall discuss this shortly.
Also remember to disinfect the cutting tools before your start snipping your plants. You can wipe the blades with any household disinfectant or you can also use hydrogen peroxide 3 or 6 percent and this is easily available at your local medical store.
2. Types of Pruning for house plants? Here we will learn Hard Pruning, Soft Pruning, Rejuvenation Pruning, Dead Heading and many other useful tips.
First we will start with:
Hard Pruning and Soft Pruning:Hard pruning or Annual Pruning as I discussed earlier is done in the dormant or inactive growth period of a plant during the late winter or early spring. In hard pruning, we cut off most of the plant stems and branches, atleast 50 percent to promote all new productive plant growth in the growing season.
Where as Soft Pruning can be performed any time of the year. Here we just trim the plant to onethird to half, the best example is pruning roses. This also includes dead heading. Deadheading means removal of dead or dried flowers from a plant which has just flowered. Sometimes it has to be a constant process and this diverts the plant energy into new growth and more flowering rather than drying up and consuming this energy into the seed formation process.
3. How to Prune? And Types of Pruning Cuts?
We will learn two important cuts here: Heading and Thinning Cuts:
Heading is the process of cutting or trimming branch tips, The cut is made anywhere on the branch or stem just half an inch above a node where it produces multiple branching usually two branches and this process makes your plant more bushy in the long run.One very important tip here:The cut is to be made at an angle of 45 degrees to allow water to run off. Because if a flat cut is made, water can stay on top of the wound which increases the chances of fungal or bacterial infection. Its also a good idea to Seal the wound with some stuff like wax or an antifungal powder or anything – even some recommend fevicol paste. If you can buy a tree paint or any commercially available pruning sealer, that’s still better. Some experts say its better to leave it open and let the plant heal itself specially for larger trees.
Thinning is the process of removing entire branches from a main stem by making a cut at its collar or just outside of the collar. Collar is the area where the branch connects with its main stem. Thinning helps sunlight to penetrate to interior foliage and promotes good air circulation and thus avoids fungus and bacterial growth.
If you are not sure how to and when to prune a particular plant, I still suggest you to atleast perform soft pruning atleast once in its growth cycle.
Regarding Choosing the right Pruning Tools, You can check that HERE.
Pruners also called as Pruning shears or hand pruners or secateurs and even garden scissors, are a type of cutting tools for use on plants and gardening.
Pruning is one of the most important and useful practice in gardening that needs to be performed irrespective of the type of plant you are growing in your garden. Whether ornamental plants or flowering or fruiting plants, these cutting or pruning practices are indispensable for your plant health and you should never avoid pruning on emotional grounds. You all must be aware of the benefits of pruning – whether to get rid of diseased branches or to promote branching and plant growth or even improving flowering and fruiting. We will not go into details of the benefits of pruning right now. But in this video we will learn about the different types of pruners or cutting tools we use in home gardening.
There are many gardeners and beginners who are not aware of the correct type of pruners they require. It is important to note that using the wrong pruners might adversely affect your plants instead of improving it.
So, now lets look at the different types of Pruners:
- Hand Pruners or Hand Shears: These are the most commonly used cutters in home gardening. These are of two types:
- Anvil pruners
- Bypass Pruners
Anvil pruners have a straight upper blade that cuts against a flat lower plate – that looks like an anvil. ANVIL means a heavy iron block on which hot metals are beaten into shape.
Well, These Anvil pruners tend to crush the stem as they cut, and are best for woody branches that won’t be harmed by crushing. So remember to use them only on woody or semiwoody branches and not soft branches that can be crushed.
Bypass pruners have curved scissor-like blades that overlap. These are ideal for cutting younger and soft branches. These are the commonly used pruners in home gardening. Also they are best for making stem cuttings at 45 degree cutting angle for propagation of plants from stem cuttings.
- Lopping Pruners or lopping shears: These are similar to the hand pruners but have long handles that provide a little more reach than hand shears and are they are suitable for heavy duty pruning for upto three-fourth to 1 inch diameter cuttings. Again similarly these are of two types – Anvil and Bypass type.
- Pole Pruners: Pole pruners are made of blades attached to hooks. These hooks are mounted on long poles and a chain or cord controls the blade, which is usually spring-loaded. Pole pruners can typically reach branches that are 12 feet or more above the ground. These are typically used when the use of ladder is not possible.
- Hedge Pruners or Hedge Shears: These are designed for rapid trimming of hedges. Hedge means a boundary or fence formed by closely growing bushes or shrubs or even grass. The hedge shears come in a variety of sizes and designs. They have long, straight or angled blades that are sharp enough to cut several branches at once shot. The longer blades of hedge shears ensure an even cut across the plant branches to maintain a neat and balanced border. You can also use them to make a neat border of many other plants as well like bougainvillea bush and stuff like that.
- Pruning Saw: Even these come in variety of sizes and blades with teeth that are fine or coarse. and even a folding type like this one is available. This looks pretty handy and sturdy for home gardening purpose. These are typically used for Stems that are more than 1-1/2 inches in diameter which are usually too large for hand pruners or lopping shears. You can find the links to purchase these items from my website www.gkvk.in
- Flower Cutter. This is a simple bypass pruner to cut small branches or flowers. These are light weight and have a spring system. And they are Best for performing dead heading. Am sure you all must be aware of what is dead heading and its benefits. You can watch this video on what is dead heading from HERE.
- Last but not the least – A simple Scissor does a lot of job. Am sure all of you agree with this. This is quite handy and most useful tool in gardening.
The Garden Tools are used in home gardening and overlaps with the range of tools made for agriculture and horticulture. Garden tools discussed here are only hand tools and not power tools.
Tools Discussed are:
The Garden Trowel
Khurpa / Khurpi
Cultivator / Hand-Rake
Garden Fork
Hand Weeder:
Garden Cutter and Pruner
Water Sprayer.
Water Sprinkler or Shower can.
Spray Gun.
Rubber Hand Gloves.
Wrecking Bar for digging.
Types of Pruners.