One of the most important parts of maintaining a healthy and attractive garden is the art of pruning. Winter can be one of the best times to prune your landscape. Easier clean up and less stress on the plants are two of the biggest benefits.
Deciduous is a term used with trees or shrubs meaning shedding its leaves annually. This term is what makes the winter a great time for pruning. These plants will essentially be bald which allows high visibility of the branch structure. High structure visibility will make thinning and deciding what branches to trim and which ones to leave to maintain a healthy structure much easier. Having no leaves on the trees also means much less to clean up. Evergreen trees and shrubs will always keep their needles year round, so the advantage is not as high with them.
Cooler days will mean more desirable working conditions. For the manual labor that comes with the task, cooler days are highly preferred. Heat stroke is a very low risk and production and efficiency will greatly increase by being comfortable.
Plants in the Staten Island climate will generally go dormant around mid October and come out of dormancy early April. Dormancy is a period of rest or metabolic inactivity. Conducting a heavy pruning during this period will cause far less stress on the plant than during its growing season as it is not reliant on those limbs for current energy production. Two purposes of pruning is to shape and control the size of the plants, if a drastic change is needed, the winter would be an optimal time to do so. Some overgrown trees or shrubs can be severely reduced in size. Plants such as barberry or eponymous can easily tolerate a drastic haircut, where as pine cannot. Before doing any drastic changes, be sure to ask for advice from Wiesner Bros. Nursery. Our experienced staff would love to help!
