Garden Guides / Pruning
Choose pruning time and cut placement by plant type, then learn how each cut changes growth, structure, flowering, and fruiting.
Use the foundation first, then choose a narrower guide for your exact task.
Foundational Pruning Guide
An apple tree that lost too much wood in one session usually survives. Its roots still hold the reserves for the canopy that was there before, so the next spring it pushes a dense…
Read guideThese guides help you decide when to cut and where, because the season and the position of a cut change what a plant grows next.
Timing guides explain why a flowering shrub cut in the wrong month can skip a year of bloom, which depends on whether it sets buds on last year's wood or this year's. Tree guides cover fruit wood, an overgrown crape myrtle, and an apple tree that was cut too hard.
Deadheading guides show where to cut each spent flower so the next buds survive. The daffodil guide explains why leaving the leaves standing for the six weeks after bloom matters more than removing the seed pod.
Lavender and rosemary do not regrow from bare wood, so these guides set how deep each cut can go. The herb guide covers basil, mint, parsley, and chives.
The houseplant guide explains why cutting back a leggy plant does not fix the low light that caused it. The tomato guide sorts side shoots by growth habit and support.
18 matching guides
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Most people cut a houseplant back because it has gone long and bare. That plant is telling you about the light, and scissors do not…
Almost every page about spent daffodils tells you to remove the seed pod so the bulb is not drained.
French lavender needs light trimming within its leafy growth, rather than a hard cut into bare stems.
A fruit tree that gives small, crowded, scabby fruit is usually not underfed.
Deadheading lavender is the lightest cut you will ever make on the plant, and the one place people still manage to kill it.
Spanish lavender is the one that flowers first and the one that keeps going.
Remove a hazard, improve structure, or renew growth with a clear reason for each cut.
Check whether the plant flowers on old wood, new wood, or both.
Watch bud growth and branch balance before scheduling more pruning.
