The rules of pruning

1. Before pruning, look carefully at the shape of the bush or tree and try to retain this shape.
2. If necessary, ask advice from an experienced gardener in order to be able to prune successfully and get the shape that you want.
3. Make sure that cuts are smooth. Ragged edges and torn stems make the plant prone to infections.
4. Keep cuts as small and smooth as possible.
5. Prune so that enough light and air can penetrate into the crown on an open bush.
6. Remove ‘suckers’ which grow from ‘wild’ rootstock and roots. They can start to dominate over the ‘cultivated’ part which has been grafted on because they grow faster. Cutting back suckers does not help, except on roses. In all other causes the suckers should be torn of at the junction with the trunk or roots.
7. Ensure balance between old and new branches if you are pruning to rejuvenate.
8. Prune in good time in order to prevent a bush from getting too big.
9. Use good quality, sharp, clean tools.
10. Afterwards, always clear up prunings immediately

Waste

Healthy prunings can go in the compost bin. Diseased material should always go in the ‘green’ waste bin; do not compost it yourself, otherwise you will spreads the disease further around your garden. Manufactured compost is always free of diseases and seeds. This is hard to achieve with home-made compost, because the quantities to be composted are too small to raise the temperature high enough during composting.