Why You Need to Prune Your Plants

Caring for a beautiful landscape in the Jackson, WY area is a rewarding task, but there is always a lot to do. Pruning is one of those tasks easy to overlook as the season goes on, but it will keep your property looking great and your plants thriving. In this post, we’d like to go over the basics of why to prune plants. 

If you decide you need some help with pruning, or with any landscaping/gardening projects on your property, reach out to TLC for assistance. With an experienced team of professionals on our team, you can trust TLC to deliver outstanding results on every project you need to have completed. Get in touch today to get started!

Why Prune Plants? The Basics

We can’t list all the benefits of consistent, proper pruning in this article, but we can hit on some of the highlights. The list below covers some of the biggest reasons you should add pruning to your maintenance schedule –

• To create healthier plants. Perhaps the most important motivation of all for consistently pruning your plants is to make them as healthy as possible. When you prune, you’ll remove some of the dead areas of the plant that are no longer serving any purpose. Cutting back those branches to allow for fresh growth and promote a balanced, natural shape is a big step in the right direction. 
• To address safety concerns. On bigger trees, pruning can be a matter of safety. When you cut back large branches that are no longer healthy, you’ll take away the potential for harm that could occur if the branch were to fall on someone or something. Leaving a larger tree to simply shed its old branches naturally is a risky strategy if that tree looms over areas where people regularly spend time. 
• To bring a vision to life. Through strategic pruning, you can influence the future growth of a plant and help it conform to the shape you have in mind. For instance, if you want a plant to grow a little bit more in one direction and a little less in another, you can keep that in mind when pruning to guide the plant perfectly for your landscaping needs. 
• To manage pests. When left unpruned, a tree or plant might become a comfortable home for a variety of pests – and the presence of those pests can take a toll on the health of the plant in one way or another. Also, if these plants are near to your home, you’ll bring the pests closer, and they might eventually find their way inside. Cutting back unneeded or unwanted growth periodically will also cut back on the number of places that pests can call home. 

The Basics of Proper Pruning

On the surface, pruning seems simple enough. Just take some shears or some clippers and start to cut back unwanted growth – right? While that is the basic idea, there is a little more to it than that. Here are some helpful tips if you decide to tackle the task of pruning your own plants. 

• The golden rule of pruning. As you work on cutting back branches, remember to take each cut seriously – you can’t put the branches back on after you cut them. So, slow down and work your way through this project strategically. If you feel like you are in a hurry and don’t have time to do it right, save this task for a day when you have more time. 
• Cut back everything that is dead or dying. An easy target for your pruning is all the branches that are either already dead or are showing signs of dying off. Likewise, if there are any broken branches, cut those back as well. Even if your pruning activities involve nothing more than cutting away the dead sections of a plant, that alone will go a long way toward giving you much better results on your property. 
• Clear the ground. Another simple way to improve your pruning is to cut back anything that is either touching the ground or is headed that way. So, branches from low on the plant or tree that have taken a turn toward the ground and will soon contact the dirt below should be cut back. This will both help the health of the plant and clean up its appearance. 

It’s absolutely possible to learn how to do your own pruning, but you can also choose to turn this task over to the professionals at TLC if you would like to save time and get excellent results right from the start. Far from just pruning, we offer a long list of landscape and gardening services to make sure your Jackson, WY property looks its best throughout the year. Contact us today.