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Alan Titchmarsh imparts a lifetime of expertise in these definitive practical guides for beginners and experienced gardeners. Step-by-step illustrations and easy-to-follow instructions guide you through the basic skills and on to the advanced techniques, providing everything you need to create and maintain your dream garden.

About the Author

Originally trained at Hertfordshire College of Horticulture and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Alan Titchmarsh is the author of over 40 books about gardening, including How to be a Gardener Book 1: Back to Basics, the fastest-selling of all time in the genre, and the bestselling The Kitchen Gardener: How to Grow Your Own Fruit and Veg. He writes for BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine, and is gardening correspondent for the Daily Express and Sunday Express. He has presented Gardeners’ World, the annual coverage of The Chelsea Flower Show and Nature of Britain, and has his own daily chatshow.

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Published in 2009 by BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing
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Introduction

Gardening is one of the best and most fulfilling activities on earth, but it can sometimes seem complicated and confusing. The answers to problems can usually be found in books, but big fat gardening books can be rather daunting. Where do you start? How can you find just the information you want without wading through lots of stuff that is not appropriate to your particular problem? Well, a good index is helpful, but sometimes a smaller book devoted to one particular subject fits the bill better – especially if it is reasonably priced and if you have a small garden where you might not be able to fit in everything suggested in a larger volume.

The How to Garden books aim to fill that gap – even if sometimes it may be only a small one. They are clearly set out and written, I hope, in a straightforward, easy-to-understand style. I don’t see any point in making gardening complicated, when much of it is based on common sense and observation. (All the key techniques are explained and illustrated, and I’ve included plenty of tips and tricks of the trade.)

There are suggestions on the best plants and the best varieties to grow in particular situations and for a particular effect. I’ve tried to keep the information crisp and to the point so that you can find what you need quickly and easily and then put your new-found knowledge into practice. Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with the Latin names of plants. They are there to make sure you can find the plant as it will be labelled in the nursery or garden centre, but where appropriate I have included common names, too. Forgetting a plant’s name need not stand in your way when it comes to being able to grow it.

Above all, the How to Garden books are designed to fill you with passion and enthusiasm for your garden and all that its creation and care entails, from designing and planting it to maintaining it and enjoying it. For more than fifty years gardening has been my passion, and that initial enthusiasm for watching plants grow, for trying something new and for just being outside pottering has never faded. If anything I am keener on gardening now than I ever was and get more satisfaction from my plants every day. It’s not that I am simply a romantic, but rather that I have learned to look for the good in gardens and in plants, and there is lots to be found. Oh, there are times when I fail – when my plants don’t grow as well as they should and I need to try harder. But where would I rather be on a sunny day? Nowhere!

The How to Garden handbooks will, I hope, allow some of that enthusiasm – childish though it may be – to rub off on you, and the information they contain will, I hope, make you a better gardener, as well as opening your eyes to the magic of plants and flowers.

Principles and purpose

Successful pruning is not the mystical art that it might sometimes appear to be. It does, however, require an understanding of why pruning is necessary. Most mistakes and failures happen when someone decides to ‘do a bit of pruning’ because a couple of shrubs need a haircut, and before you know it everything in the garden has been given a short back and sides. Pruning without purpose does more harm than good, so careful preparation and knowing what you want to achieve are both vitally important.

What is pruning?

Pruning has been described as the removal of parts of a plant for a particular purpose, but it’s not usually that simple. Often there will be several objectives rather than just one. Before you prune anything, you must have an idea of what you hope to achieve and how the plant should respond. Knowing how it will look once the pruning is complete (and through the coming seasons) should influence what you do.

Some plants can be left largely to their own devices and will still grow reasonably well. After all, many trees and shrubs grow happily in the wild and are never pruned, although you might want to cut them back a little to suit the size and shape of your garden. At the other end of the spectrum, some plants are constantly clipped – often two or three times each season, in the case of topiary – resulting in amazing garden ‘sculptures’. Generally, though, a bit of routine pruning is beneficial for plants; to improve their health, vigour, performance and shape or to restrict its size (see here).

Remember that pruning will not solve all of the growth, performance and habit problems a plant may experience, and no amount of pruning will ever correct or control a plant when it’s growing in the wrong place. For instance, a large tree may have to be cut back severely on an annual basis, to the point where it bears no resemblance to its true natural form and habit, simply because it has been planted too close to a house or building. Similarly, a hedge of the highly vigorous × Cupressocyparis leylandii (Leyland cypress) will never look right in a small suburban garden, no matter how often it’s cut back, and it will dwarf and shade neighbouring plants in no time. These are both examples of the wrong plant in the wrong place and, sadly, the only realistic solution is to remove them and replace them with other plants that are more suited to the surroundings.

Why prune?

There are a number of reasons for pruning: to encourage strong, healthy growth, to increase flower or fruit production, and to create a more pleasing, balanced shape and restrict growth. Pruning can also perform a more specialized function – you can use pruning techniques to train young trees and shrubs, or to create special effects such as coloured stems or large leaves in certain species. Some plants need regular attention to give of their best, while others may require only an annual trim or some formative pruning in their early years.

Health and vigour

Pruning trees and shrubs for health and vigour involves removing shoots, branches, stems or leaves that will have a detrimental effect on the plant if they are left alone. Parts of a plant that are infected with fungal disease or that have died back should be taken out as soon as possible in order to prevent problems increasing and affecting healthy tissue.

Overcrowded plants are prone to attack by fungal diseases because the air flow through the branches is reduced, and where shoots rub together in the wind it creates an open wound through which spores can enter and attack. Pruning trees and shrubs to remove any stems or branches whose woody tissue has been invaded by fungal or bacterial diseases can (if done in time) prevent the spread of many diseases and often prolong the life of the plant. Removing thin, weak, spindly shoots, which are most vulnerable to attack, and thinning out the growth in the centre of a plant to allow a good flow of air around the branches, both help to make life more difficult for diseases such as mildews and pests such as aphids, thus reducing the need for spraying.

With some plants, if a branch or stem has been twisted, broken or split as a result of wind or other damage (for instance, soft shoots being killed by frost or wind chill), the wound almost always gets infected or becomes a sheltering site for pests that may attack other parts of the plant. Here, pruning is used to remove the damaged growth before the attack can progress. The plant may take several years to recover and regain its natural shape afterwards, but a sacrifice made in the short term can extend the life span of the remaining parts of the plant.

What happens if you don’t prune?

Some trees and shrubs will grow quite happily without regular pruning, although in the average garden some pruning will probably be necessary to keep the plant under control. Few gardens have sufficient space for a tree to be allowed to grow entirely unchecked.

However, often when plants are left to grow naturally without any pruning, they develop faults that can lead to the production of misshapen shoots and stems. These may result in further damage later in the plant’s life. This problem is quite common with trees and shrubs where branches develop too closely together – branches rub together, causing injury, or narrow forks form, which are prone to splits and breaks when the stems become larger. Even a plant such as magnolia, which often needs very little pruning once established, will benefit from pruning and training as a young plant to prevent any of these common faults developing.

Maintenance pruning can also reduce the risk of damage to a plant from pests and diseases, by creating the type of conditions that make the plant less prone to attack.

Shaping

It is necessary to prune some woody plants constantly throughout their lives to maintain their habit. This can range from the occasional cutting back of a few stems to retain an attractive form, to regular and essential trimming of more complex shapes. The most obvious example of the latter is in topiary, when clipping plants into a particular shape. For instance: a cone, a sphere or a spiral, or more elaborate creations such as bird or animal forms – such plants become living statues (see here and here). Hedges may also need to be clipped or trimmed regularly (up to three times a year) to maintain their shape (see here).

Balance

Young plants, especially woody ones, tend to produce lots of strong vigorous growth. This is followed by a period of fairly balanced growth, with equal energy going into both flower and fruit production and leaf and shoot development. Later, as the plant ages, there is a greater emphasis on flowers and fruit, with much less new leaf and shoot growth.

One of the main purposes of pruning is to keep a balance between the two types of growth. Some pruning each year may be necessary to encourage more flowers and fruit in the early stages of the plant’s life. As the plant matures, the emphasis will shift towards encouraging new shoots to form to replace older ones, to sustain the plant. It is easy to forget that flowering and fruiting can often put a huge strain on a plant, and so it needs sufficient green leaves to manufacture food to support it during this period.

Special effects

You can use pruning techniques to create a variety of special ornamental effects. For instance, some plants respond to annual hard pruning by producing stunning new shoots or leaves. If hard pruned, Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’ (purple-leaved smoke bush) and Sambucus nigra f. laciniata (cut-leaved elderberry) will produce a few stems with very large, brightly coloured leaves – these are popular with flower arrangers, who use their impressive foliage as background ‘greenery’ in their displays. Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’ (contorted or corkscrew hazel) and some dogwoods (Salix or Cornus species) respond to hard pruning by producing striking twisted stems or brightly coloured young shoots respectively (see here and here).

Pruning for effect can also involve altering the growth habit of a plant to suit a particular situation. For instance, a flowering quince (Chaenomeles) or a pyracantha can be grown as a freestanding shrub in a border, or – if pruned differently – the same plant may be grown successfully as a wall shrub (see here) or a hedge (see here).

Fruit and flower production

With many wall shrubs, climbing plants and fruit trees, pruning and tying growths into set positions will maximize the quantity of flowers or healthy, undamaged fruit, as well as limit the amount of growth a plant produces each year.

A fruiting plant left to its own devices will usually produce large amounts of small fruits. By pruning to reduce the number of stems, you can direct the plant’s energy into making fewer, larger fruits. This, coupled with the practice of ‘fruit thinning’, to remove a proportion of the fruits where overcrowding has occurred, can be used to improve fruit size and quality.

To produce a good crop of fruit from trees growing in a confined space, fruit growers prune and train the trees into specific shapes, such as cordons, espaliers and fans (see here and here).

Size restriction

The size of a plant can be controlled by regularly pruning out shoots. However, this is an ongoing process that must be repeated frequently, and one that does not in itself slow or restrict the plant’s growth. For this, you need to root-prune (see here). Cutting through the roots of a plant checks the flow of water and nutrients to the stems, thereby limiting the growth potential of the plant and consequently its height and spread. (Bonsai could be considered the ultimate example of effective root pruning combined with regular trimming.)

To produce the desired effect, root pruning can be carried out in one operation or in stages. Either way, it will slow the plant’s growth for several years, after which it may need to be repeated.

FOCUS ON Vertical and horizontal growth

Many plants display a characteristic known as apical dominance, where the growing tip (apex) of a shoot dominates the growth of that stem. No side (or ‘lateral’) shoots develop in the area immediately below the growing point and the result is a very slender, vertical plant. This isn’t always desirable, for several reasons: bushier, fuller growth may be required, and in some cases horizontal branches produce better flowers or fruit. The problem of apical dominance can be overcome by pruning.

To create bushy, multi-branched plants you need to break apical dominance, either by bending a stem into a horizontal position (see here) or by removing the shoot tip (see here). The former reduces the flow of sap to the terminal bud and the latter stops sap flow completely. Both methods will lead to the growth of sideshoots, along with a new growing point (usually from the highest bud). With young plants, removing the tip is often referred to as ‘pinching’ or ‘pinching out’ – you can either snap off the tender shoot tip between your finger and thumb, or cut it off with a sharp knife. With woody plants, you should cut off the growing point (and often part of the stem, too) using a pair of sharp secateurs.

Horizontal shoots

Many climbing plants can be coaxed into better flower development and producing more shoots by bending the long, trailing growths down into a horizontal position and tying them in place. This will have the effect of encouraging flower buds to form along the entire length of the shoot, rather than just on the growing point. It is no coincidence that when you see wisteria growing on house walls it is invariably the horizontal branches that are covered in flowers (see here).

Fruit growers increase the yield of their apple trees using this technique; tying new young shoots into a horizontal position encourages fruit buds to form along the entire length of the shoots, while also allowing more sunlight to reach the fruit, since the branches are evenly spaced. The end product is fruit that is better coloured and easier to see and pick. These horizontal shoots need to be tied into this position for only one or two years until they become woody and fixed in position. They then remain horizontal, but any new shoots that form as extensions of these will try to grow vertically again, so you will need to train these horizontally or prune them out.

Types of pruning

There are four main types of pruning: formative, maintenance (or routine), renewal, and renovation (or rejuvenation). The type of pruning you decide to do will depend on what you want to achieve, the type of plant you are pruning, and the plant’s stage of development. As a general rule, younger plants need more pruning in order to create a good framework of branches and stems.

Formative pruning

This is used mainly for young or developing plants. The aim is to create even growth and overall development, but it can also be used to shape plants into a particular structural framework. Even plants that you intend to grow ‘naturally’ (so that they follow their normal growth habit) need some pruning in the early stages to prevent problems later on. For instance, if you don’t prune a tree when it is young, it may form narrow-angled branches, which are very vulnerable to splitting as the plant gets older. Also, some trees and shrubs that have their buds in opposite pairs have a strong tendency to develop into ‘forked’ stems – where two buds at the top of a shoot grow at an equal rate. They eventually create a narrow fork that can easily split, and this can lead to half of the crown or top of the plant being lost if one shoot breaks. Again, formative pruning will reduce the chances of forked stems occurring.

The amount of formative pruning you undertake depends to a large extent on the type of plant and the way in which it has been grown in its early years. For example, if you’ve propagated a plant yourself you’ll need to train it from scratch. However, if you buy a container-grown fruit tree or shrub that has been partially trained from a garden centre or nursery, there will be very little formative pruning to do because the work has been started for you.

Standard plants

Possibly the most common form of formative pruning is the creation of ‘standards’, where a plant (usually a tree) is trained on a single stem (or ‘leg’) with a cluster of branches (or ‘head’) at the top (see here). Sometimes the stem and head are of the same plant, or they may be different varieties. In the case of a ‘weeping’ standard, the top is often a trailing ground-cover plant that has been grafted onto a straight stem to create the effect. With these types of plant a separate pruning regime is required for each stage of the plant’s development; one type of formative pruning is used to create the stem and another to form the head.

Preventing ‘reversion’

Maintenance pruning includes tasks such as cutting out areas of ‘reversion’ that often occur on variegated plants. Most variegated plants – those with leaves with paler green, white, gold or silver markings – were once all green but arose as genetic mutations. These attractive rogues were then propagated by plant breeders, who produced new varieties which were introduced as variegated forms (many new holly, or Ilex, varieties emerged in this way).

From time to time these variegated plants may ‘revert’ to their original form and start to produce all-green shoots. The green shoots are considerably more vigorous than the variegated ones, so if these reverted shoots are not pruned out as soon as they are seen, they can quite quickly grow so well that the colourful variegated shoots are smothered.

Maintenance pruning

As the name suggests, this is the type of pruning carried out to keep plants healthy and growing and performing in the way you want them to. This type of pruning (also known as routine pruning) is aimed at retaining a balance between growth and flowering or fruiting.

Some plants, such as Brachyglottis (syn. Senecio), Callistemon (bottle brush), Hebe and lavender (see here), have a natural tendency to become bare and ‘leggy’ at the base so they are routinely pruned after flowering to shorten the top growth. This allows plenty of light into the base of the plant and encourages shoots to form lower down the stems. Many of these shrubs thrive in plenty of light, and one of the main reasons for them developing a sparse growth habit with bare wood at the base is because of top growth shading the lower levels of the plant and causing the foliage to die.

Other forms of maintenance pruning include dead-heading (removing old flowers, see here) and removing unwanted suckers (see here).

Renewal pruning

This technique is often used for pruning established fruit trees, but it can also be used on established shrubs where minimal pruning is required. It involves very little cutting but it will help keep established plants growing well. Renewal pruning involves the removal of older growth to make room for new shoots to grow as replacements; fruit growers often refer to it as ‘replacement’ pruning.

Ornamental cherries and apples

Many ornamental cherries can also be pruned in this way, particularly those that produce flowers only on the shoot tips. If you prune these plants overall to stop them spreading too far, you will be removing flower-bearing wood each time. By removing complete branches and making way for other branches to grow naturally, and creating room for replacement shoots, only a small amount of flower is lost. This strikes a balance between losing some flowering wood and allowing other shoots to form that will bear future generations of flowers.

Apple trees with a tip-bearing (or partially tip-bearing) habit, such as the cooking apple Malus domestica ‘Bramley’s Seedling’ (see here), often crop better when pruned by this method.

Weeping trees

Renewal pruning is very useful as a method for pruning plants with a weeping habit, where the newer shoots tend to emerge and arch over previous generations of branches. The problem with this type of growth habit is that the older branches become shaded by the newer, stronger shoots and suffer from a lack of light. The growth becomes weak or dies off and large quantities of dead or dying wood can accumulate, which may harbour pests and diseases. Where this is the case, simply remove the lower, older shoots and branches; this will either allow in sufficient sunlight to encourage new shoots to emerge, or create enough room for the younger shoots to spread and grow naturally.

Ornamental shrubs

A number of ornamental shrubs can be renewal pruned, because these tend to form a dense clump of shoots of similar size and thickness. In this case, renewal pruning consists of cutting out a number of shoots each year (usually the oldest and most unproductive) with a saw or loppers, as close to ground level as possible, to create space for new, vigorous replacement shoots. No other pruning is normally required, other than trimming any shoots that are damaged when the large stems are removed. If this regime is followed regularly, after four to five years all the older shoots will have been replaced by new ones.

Renovation (rejuvenation)

Whichever word you use, this type of pruning amounts to the same thing: implementing a severe pruning regime to give a misshapen, overgrown, tired and neglected plant a new lease of life. In short, it is the rescue operation that you attempt when the only other option is to remove the plant and start again. However, as with most things in the life of a gardener, success is not guaranteed and, with some plants, failure is inevitable. Conifers seldom regrow if you prune into old, brown growth; the exceptions are Taxus baccata (English yew) and Thuja plicata (western red cedar), which will both recover. As a general rule, conifers are usually replaced rather than hard pruned. Several other plants are also unable to come back from this type of pruning – mainly broad-leaved evergreens such as Ceanothus, Coronilla, Cytisus, Genista, Lavandula and Santolina.

If a plant is a suitable candidate for renovation (see here), it is worth having a go, especially if the plant is valuable or otherwise difficult to replace. If it is healthy and vigorous, albeit neglected, it should respond. If it does not, dig it out and replace it.

Renovating gradually

Renovation must be carried out in stages: it is not an overnight mission, so it does require patience. It will usually involve cutting back (hard) half of the plant one year and the other half the following year, so it may be two or three years before you see the plant really start to look happy again. Flowering may take a year longer. With a hedge, the need to renovate in stages is a great advantage because it means you can keep a certain amount of privacy and shelter while the plants recover.

If the plant responds well to the first year’s pruning it will produce a quantity of strong, vigorous shoots. In some cases there may be far too many new shoots for your intended purpose. They may also (inevitably!) grow in completely the wrong place, and usually all together. So part of the second stage of renovation is to select for retention those new shoots that will produce a strong, well-balanced plant and to ‘thin out’ or remove the others (always remove the spindliest, weakest shoots first).

If at the end of it all you find that your rescue mission has been a success, the effort will have been worthwhile. For a gardener, it is enormously satisfying to see a much-loved but neglected plant restored to its former glory.

Plants suitable for renovation pruning

Abeliophyllum

Aucuba

Callistemon

Calycanthus

Camellia

Carpenteria

Chaenomeles

Chimonanthus

Cornus

Cotoneaster

Daphne

Eucryphia

Garrya

Hydrangea anomala subsp. petiolaris

Ilex

Kalmia

Magnolia × soulangeana

Mahonia × media

Malus

Osmanthus

Pyrus

Rhododendron

Schizophragma

Wisteria

Getting started

Before you whip out your pruning loppers, decide what it is you’re trying to achieve. Ask yourself why you are pruning the plant and what you expect from it after it has been pruned. Next, you need to make sure that you have the equipment to do the job and that it is in excellent condition. Hacking away at stems with rusty or blunt tools will cause more damage than just about anything else.

Planning your pruning

It is easy to forget that pruning provokes growth, and the way you prune will determine how the plant responds. With any type of pruning, you can divide it up into the cuts you need to make (necessary cuts, or the ‘four Ds’) and the cuts you would like to make (desirable cuts).

The cuts you need to make are those that protect the health and well-being of the plant you’re pruning. The cuts you would like to make are those that will shape or form the plant – these are the cuts that will influence the growth and general performance of the plant.

Choosing the right tool

First, decide which tool is most appropriate for the task. The tool you use will depend on the thickness of the stem or branch that you’re intending to cut, and it’s quite possible you’ll need at least two cutting implements to cope with the difference in stem size and thickness. For woody shoots up to 1cm (½in) thick, use secateurs. For thick, woody shoots 1–2.5cm (½–1in) thick, and for inaccessible stems, long-handled pruners, or loppers, are ideal. For very thick branches you’ll need to use a pruning saw. A garden knife is also useful for light pruning tasks. (For information on tools, see here.)

Necessary cuts

There are some basic rules to follow when you start pruning any plant, and these should make the task of pruning easier. First, inspect your plant and make decisions about what to remove and what to leave. The essential parts to cut out are known as the ‘four Ds’, which makes them easier to remember:

The four Ds are all necessary cuts and should always be carried out before any other pruning. There is nothing more annoying than doing quite a bit of work on a stem or branch only to find that it is diseased at the base and should have been cut out at ground level or where it meets the main trunk.

Dead wood

First, remove any dead branches from the plant you’re pruning. Dead wood makes no contribution at all to the plant and will form a perfect site for the eggs of insect pests and spores of fungal diseases to survive the winter successfully and emerge to attack the plant in the following spring.

The dead wood may be hard and dry so, wherever possible, remove it with a saw – cutting through it with secateurs or loppers can be very hard work and will quickly blunt your tools (this is because they are designed to cut through live, green, sappy wood). With some plants it’s very difficult to tell which stems are dead and which are alive, especially if you are pruning in the winter when the plants are dormant. If in doubt, do the scrape test (see Don’t forget). Alternatively, you could wait until growth starts, when it will be much easier to distinguish between live shoots and dead ones.

Whenever you are not sure if a shoot is alive, there is a simple but effective test you can do. Scrape away a small amount of bark with your fingernail or a clean knife. If the wood below the bark is a greenish white, there is a very good chance that the growth in this area is still alive. If you find dry, brown or grey wood under the bark, the area you have exposed is almost certainly dead. You can repeat this process along a stem or branch to find out the extent of the dead areas. (Not all plants have greenish-white live tissue under the bark: berberis, magnolias and mahonias all have live tissue that is orange or yellow.)

Damaged branches and stems

Plants with damaged branches and stems are difficult to make a decision about, mainly because you need to determine what degree of damage you are prepared to accept and what is severe enough to need to be removed for the health of the plant.

Where branches and stems are broken, make a pruning cut into healthy wood below the damaged area. A split stem exposes the inner tissue, and this type of wound very rarely heals because it is continually opening and closing every time the branch or stem moves. It is vulnerable to the entry of fungal spores, which can eventually cause the entire plant to die.

The difficulty comes where the damage has been caused to stems and branches by rubbing or scraping – either two branches rubbing together, or where stems and branches are rubbing against some type of foreign body, such as a tree touching its supporting stake and ties or, most often, climbers and wall shrubs chafing against a wall, fence, or other support structure when the wind is blowing. Any form of damage will tend to create an open wound that, particularly with rubbing, never gets the chance to heal because it is constantly being reopened. A large amount of the plant’s energy will be diverted into producing callus (healing tissue) in an attempt to close the wound.

With wounds on climbing plants and trees where the injury is caused by contact with the supports or ties, the very least you need to do is re-tie stems and branches so that they are no longer loose. If the damage is severe, some pruning will be needed to remove the damaged parts.

Diseased growth

You will need to remove any branch, shoot or root that shows signs of disease (or severe pest infestation) in an attempt to safeguard the remaining parts of the plant. This may involve paring away some bark with a sharp knife to remove the early signs of a disease attack or, in a lot of cases, taking away complete branches to halt the progressive spread of a fungus or bacterium. The main problem is knowing how much to remove. It is best to remove as little growth as possible, but it is also important to be sure you have eradicated the problem completely.

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