Rejuvenating Deciduous Shrubs Underway

Deciduous shrubs lose their leaves each fall and don’t look very attractive during the winter. In addition, many, like most landscape shrubs, naturally grow larger and more rapidly than the desired height where planted. To keep them pruned to the appropriate height, many shrubs become twiggy and unattractive. To fix this, we have adopted rejuvenation pruning to bring them back to size. Sometimes this can be done by thinning pruning, but other times they need to be cut down to the ground and allowed to regrow at a shorter and more natural height. The problem is that after the cutback, it looks like we killed the plants. However, don’t worry—they always grow back and look much better throughout the season. This process is done annually for some shrubs and every 2–3 years for others.

Again, this may appear drastic, but our experience over the past few years of applying this philosophy to our winter deciduous pruning practices has shown positive results. We are seeing healthier, more natural-looking shrubs maintained at their desired height in the landscape. The most common deciduous plants for which we perform this practice annually are Barberry, Abelia, Spirea, and Dogwood. For others, such as Willow, Hydrangea, Euonymus, and Forsythia, this is done every 2–3 years.