Whether you’re doing a heavy viburnum pruning or a light shaping of your rhododendrons, proper pruning promotes well-branched shrubs with a denser growth habit.
Tips for spring-blooming shrub and viburnum pruning:
- You shouldn’t prune spring-blooming shrubs into round meatball shapes. Instead, start by removing any dead branches, and then selectively trim others, one-by-one, in order to maintain the shrub’s natural shape.
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- Use a clean, sharp pair of pruners or a small pruning saw to make the cuts. To prevent the spread of disease, disinfect the blades with a spritz of pruning disinfectant before you move to another plant.
- The pruning requirements of spring-blooming shrubs are minimal because their natural growth habit requires very little maintenance.
- Don’t remove more than one-third of the total plant height at any one time, and step back and carefully examine the plant after each cut.
- Keep the shrub’s structure open by removing one or two of the larger branches each season. This also encourages new growth.
Viburnum pruning, and the pruning of other spring-blooming shrubs, isn’t hard, but it does require a bit of finesse. With a light, yearly pruning that encourages their natural form, these plants will produce a plethora of beautiful blooms every spring.
