Several of my new clients have been learning the hard way that improperly pruning their trees and shrubs is a sad, expensive mistake. When I get calls from people looking to set up a first gardening session, I ask them to hold off on cleaning up their garden to get ready for me.

Too often embarrassed or over-eager newbies will head out into the garden after booking a coaching session in order to “clean up” their mess before their new mentor comes out. I’m thrilled for their enthusiasm, but the point of hiring me is to learn how to do things right before things go terribly wrong. So often this biggest error I find is made by people with no pruning experience. What do I see?

• Using the wrong tool to prune the wrong plant. (Ever seen a branch pruned by a pair of scissors or lawn shears? I have.)  The results?
  • Plants mutilated in frustration…torn branches, hacked cuts
  • Injury…using the wrong tool for the wrong task = painful results for people and plants!
• Mutilated plants: If you don’t know how plants grow, odds are you don’t know how to prune them.
  • Years of renovation work will now be required…if the plant is still worth salvaging
• Almost right pruning: Sometimes a little understand is enough to get a new gardener into trouble.
  • Pruning tree branches to a node (any branch…even watersprouts), but still tipping, not taking out a branch to a point of origin
  • Radical renovations that form balls rather than alternate cuts
• Pruning out of order
  • Leaving dead, dying, broken or crossing/rubbing branches & taking out the healthy
  • Removing strong branches & leaving water sprouts
  • Removing one branch in a fused pair
  • Pruning plants that are better left alone
  • Pruning at the wrong time of year & wondering why flowering or fruiting was reduced

So, what I hope all of you readers will learn is: Don’t prune until you know how. If you don’t know what I’m describing above, then you need some pruning lessons before you take a sharp tool to a plant. Don’t clean up before you get direction from your teacher. There’s a reason you’re hiring a gardening coach; take advantage of what they will teach you. It will save you and your garden money, health and happiness.

Oh, and what’s the education for me? Often a client will proudly point to a tree that they worked hard to “shape” or “prune” or “make smaller”. I’m always learning delicate ways to break the news to them that what they did was completely wrong, that they may have destroyed the tree or shrub, that they may have cut off only the parts that they really needed (read fruiting spurs), that they have years of hard work ahead to now try to “fix” the mistakes they just made. Its tough. I want to encourage people and make them feel great about their work in the garden. I’m pretty much a “glass is half full” kinda gal, so I see the positive and find a way to make these difficult lessons easier to follow.

If you’re desperate for help pruning, get in touch. There are lots of great resources out there to help you start learning.