It's February: Time to prune trees and shrubs

It's February, and you know what that means: It's time to wipe the cobwebs from your gardening gloves and the rust from your pruners.

While the uninitiated might think we're crazy to go out into the garden in the dead of winter and actually start, well, gardening, we aficionados see it as a rite of passage, the precise moment in time when the off-season turns on and we can get our hands near the dirt again after the bleak, barren weeks since we canned the last of the tomatoes and cut down the bearded iris.

With the exception of "bleeder" trees (beech, elm, dogwood, maple and sycamore), and those that flower in spring, the most beneficial time for pruning is late winter through early spring - before bud break. That's when the best healing takes place. We are, after all, cutting off limbs. Plus, it's easier to see what you're doing without all those leaves obscuring the branches.

If your trees have dead, diseased or broken branches, or if limbs are beginning to invade electrical lines or your roof, they'll need to be pruned. Likewise, shrubs that have grown sparse and those that have become too heavily branched.

Here are some dos and don'ts to keep in mind as your pruning gets under way.

Do

Start pruning when trees are young.

Use the three-cut method when pruning limbs with a diameter greater than 1 inch. Otherwise, it's likely you'll tear the bark. (See below.)

Keep hedges wider at the BOTTOM.

Prune forsythia every year, right after flowering.

Disinfect tools between cuts when pruning diseased trees. Use a solution of nine parts water to one part household bleach.

Call a professional when large trees need pruning.

Don't

Try to reduce tree size by cutting off the top. This will cause a major injury, invite insects and disease, and make your tree ugly.

Attempt to prune a tree taller than your pole saw can reach. If you need a ladder, you shouldn't be doing it yourself.

Prune spring bloomers until after the flowers fade.

Prune clethra or cotoneaster unless absolutely necessary.

Cut down buddleia (butterfly bush) in fall; do so only in spring before new growth emerges.

Use anvil-type pruners; they tend to crush plant tissue. Instead, stick with bypass-type tools.

THE THREE-CUT METHOD

Use this for branches with a diameter of 1 inch or more.

1. Cut the branch halfway through from underneath, a few inches from the trunk.

2. Move your saw a few inches farther out on the branch, away from the trunk, and cut the whole branch off from the top. This eliminates the weight of the branch and prevents tearing.

3. Make the third and final cut just outside the branch-bark ridge, sawing through the entire branch to the outside of the collar. If you were to make this complete cut without having done steps 1 and 2, the weight of the branch would cause it to rip just before separating, and the tree would have a difficult recovery and a larger area through which disease could enter.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: The three-cut pruning method

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