I love pruning garden plants for the sense of accomplishment and the chance to express my whims. Funny for a guy who hasn’t had a haircut in decades, eh?

Beyond removing dead or dying growth, pruning keeps things neat. Shearing shrubs and hedges controls size, removes wayward stems, and clears clutter. Routine winter pruning of hybrid tea roses, hydrangeas, and figs falls into this category, though not all roses should be cut back heavily.

I just spent half a day doing all of the above in reasonably nice weather, after the wasps left their hidden nests (though I always shake shrubs first, just in case). I cut down browned grasses and faded perennials, leaving those with strong winter structure or seed heads for wild birds. I stripped large leaves off a couple of trees to avoid raking them later, and removed low-hanging branches and vines above the walks.

I believe all good gardens have strong contrasts in size, shape, and texture, so I don’t prune everything. I have only one boxwood and two yaupon hollies that I shear regularly, mostly to show neighbors I know how. These tight, green, “meatball”-shaped plants contrast sharply with the bare stems of a nearby Japanese maple and the feathery, layered nandina, whose berries are just starting to color.

Most of this pruning is routine, done every late fall or winter for foliage- or summer-flowering plants such as everblooming shrub roses, althea (rose of Sharon), vitex, hydrangeas, gardenias, crape myrtles, and next year’s camellias. Every spring I prune azaleas, blueberries, clematis, and climbing or once-blooming roses after flowering. I touch my Peggy Martin, Lady Banks, and other climbing roses only after they flower, except to remove the most errant canes.

It’s fine to neaten spring bloomers a bit, removing wild shoots, but leave most stems untouched or you’ll lose flowers. This includes blueberries and berry-producing hollies and nandinas – leave some stems unpruned if you want berries next year.

Two basic principles of pruning: New growth sprouts just below a cut on long branches, so cut below where you want the plant to sprout. And if removing limbs near the base, don’t leave stubs, which can rot. Cut as close as possible without making large wounds.

It’s also unnecessary to use pruning paints or wound treatments. Most offer no benefit, can seal in decay organisms, or even slow healing. Arborists widely acknowledge this, regardless of what your dad did.

Finally, I enjoy topiary and artistic pruning. Espaliering vines and trees flat against walls, shaping hollies and junipers into multi-stemmed poodles, or shearing shrubs into cones, balls, and pyramids – all are about removing what you don’t want and leaving the rest. Sort of like plucking eyebrows.

Southern Living’s taste-making aside, if you don’t approve of cutting crape myrtles into fist-like balls every year, don’t do it. Just keep it to yourself. This ancient form of topiary, called pollarding, is practiced worldwide, including by arborists with the Royal Horticultural Society.

Productive or artistic, when it comes to pruning, have a goal, think about timing, and get to it.

Felder Rushing is a Mississippi author, columnist, and host of “Gestalt Gardener” on MPB Think Radio. Email gardening questions to [email protected].

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