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What’s the best time for trimming a Conifer?

What’s the best time for trimming a Conifer?

May 8, 2020 | Arborist, Tree Surgeon, Tree Surveys

Conifers are beautiful trees that are commonly found in UK gardens. If well-tendered and well-cared for, these cone-bearing trees with scale-like or needle-like leaves can dramatically increase the appeal of the garden. Apart from that, they can improve the air quality in your home to a great extent. But that is not all, conifers can be harvested for timber, which can be used in a variety of applications including construction, furniture making, boat or shipbuilding and more.

What time of year should you cut conifers?

Trimming and pruning enhance tree growth, improve tree structure, promote safety as well as aesthetics. But one thing you need to keep in mind is that conifers need to be trimmed or pruned only at certain times of the year and not just any other time you feel like.

Conifers should be cut only twice a year at different times. For example, pruning should be done in late winter or early spring when the trees are dormant whereas trimming should be performed in late summer or early autumn when conifers have shed their needles.

Since conifers are dormant from winter up until early spring, cutting(pruning) your conifers at this time ensures less damage to your trees. Just like human beings, conifers will sustain a wound when cut through pruning, and just like our wounds, their wounds are susceptible to bacteria. If they are affected by bacteria, your conifers will eventually get destroyed. 

Trees generally heal faster from pruning-related wounds during their dormancy period. This is because there is no interference from pathogens and destructive insects that come with the warmer weather.

Hedge trimmer

Why is late summer or autumn the ideal time to trim your conifers?

To answer this question, it is important to understand first, the primary purpose of trimming. Many tree owners perform trimming mainly for aesthetic purposes, even though this tree maintenance procedure also supplies a number of pruning-related benefits. Winter or early spring would be the best times to trim conifers if it were not for the fact that these cone-shaped trees only shed their needles during late summer or early autumn. In winter or spring, their needles are fully intact, which makes it harder to evaluate their structure and trim successfully during these times of the year compared to doing so during the warmer seasons.

Hedge Trimming Advice and Tips

Hedge Trimming Advice and Tips

May 8, 2020 | Arborist, Tree Surgeon, Tree Surveys

For the first couple of years, a new hedge should be pruned either in the winter or spring. These first trimmings are called formative pruning. From then on maintenance pruning should be done between spring and summer. Informal hedges need this once a year, whereas formal hedges require twice a year and occasionally a third pruning in order to keep a tidy appearance.

Pruning tips for shrubbery and hedges

Manual shears should be used for smaller plants, and for larger plants an electric or gas trimmer is required. No matter the choice in the tool, make sure it is well lubricated and sharp. When wielding a power tool, think safety first. This means sturdy gloves and safety glasses. Make sure the ground is clear of any obstacles in your work area and that if using a platform or ladder, they are completely stable.

When using corded power trimmers, to prevent the cord from being sliced, place it over your shoulder. Avoid using any power tools in damp or wet conditions. Using a hedge trimmer that has an extended reach and features a cutting head that pivots will simplify your job, especially when pruning those hard to reach areas.

Take out the thickest branches of overgrown shrubs. Cut them back completely to the shrub’s base to encourage the growth of the shrub. Long-handled Loppers will give you the leverage to prune one to two-inch branches, use hand pruners for the branches smaller than one inch. 

When cutting a branch, make sure the wood is deep into the cutter’s jaws. This will give you better leverage to make the cut and make it a cleaner cut which will enable faster healing. If you live where snow is common, you might consider cutting a rounded top into your shrubs and hedges to prevent snow accumulation.

Hedge Trimming

Be aware of the following:

  • Before beginning work on your plants, check for birds nesting as it is an offence to damage or destroy any wild birds nests in use or being built.
  • Do not trim conifer hedges after August; however, yew can be safely pruned all the way till September.
  • Boundary hedges should be kept trimmed in order not to impede access to pedestrians via overhang of the street or walkways. Even hedges that are regularly pruned can become quite large. 
  • Broadleafed and deciduous evergreens can often be radically cut back and their growth corrected, however, some old conifers and plants that can’t be cut back, should be replaced so as not to be a nuisance.
  • Hedges can be formal or informal, informal hedges can be anywhere, even used as a windbreak at the edge of a land boundary. Formal hedges are beautiful in English gardens, skirting manor houses, and setting off special landscaping features such as fountains and statues.
  • Roses can be used as formal shrubbery to set off resting areas on large formal grounds. For the creative types, growing shrubbery into shapes such as animals can be quite striking and eye-catching.  Just remember to keep them pruned to stay looking their best.
Hedge Trimming