The dogwood is pruned in early spring. The main task is to put the plant in order and increase the fertility of the bush by leaving only those branches that are in the stage of active development. You can find out how and when to prune dogwood from this article.
Foto: Christina Richards – shutterstock
Cutting Dogwood: Overview
Prepare a well-sharpened garden tool, treat its surface with an alcohol solution and remove the dried stems. Cut to healthy wood. Cut off shoots that have been growing for more than 20 years at the base so that the plant can renew itself faster and the sleeping buds receive a development boost.
After cutting, you should water: about 30 liters of water under the bush, loosen the soil around the trunk. To help the plant cope with stress better, fertilize it in the form of humus, mulch and mineral fertilizer.
Also read: Which trees should be cut in winter: January is the best time for pruning the following perennials
When to Prune Dogwoods
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Prune dogwoods during dormancy. The thinning cut can also be done later – during the spring vegetation, but not during the flowering period. Unwanted overgrowth is removed.
How to properly prune dogwoods
The dogwood does not need regular pruning and can bear fruit without our intervention. The plant naturally has a correct crown and is able to keep it in optimal condition. But a little help is still useful here. With the onset of spring, the dogwood needs to be cleared of some of the old and broken branches. Weak, thin and twisted shoots should also be removed.
Formative pruning
Foto: David Byron Keener / shutterstock
What options are there for the shape of the dogwood? Basically you have 2 options depending on the shape you want.
1. Form dogwood as a shrub with several skeletal branches (up to 5-7 pieces) and a trunk height of up to half a meter. This is the optimal formation.
2. However, if you want to design the dogwood as a tree, you only need to leave one strong main shoot and remove all shoots near the ground.
Note: Even when forming a bush, the root shoots should be removed as soon as they appear.
When to perform rejuvenation pruning
When pruning, care should be taken to ensure that the center of the crown is well lit. If you have an old dogwood, you should rejuvenate it every 10-15 years for regular fruiting by removing all branches that are 10 years old and older.
Even severe pruning is well tolerated by dogwood, as the number of shoots fully regenerates the following year. However, you will lose the harvest for three years. Therefore, with a large number of old shoots, the procedure is carried out not all at once, but gradually in 2-3 years, so that young replacement shoots are gradually formed from the lower part of the bush and at the same time a harvest is obtained from the old shoots.
Create decorative shapes
Dogwood is very tolerant of cutting. Therefore, in landscape design, the shrubs can be given a decorative shape with various figures and outlines. Well-groomed dogwood bushes also look pretty in their natural form.
Important: If you have a grafted dogwood, you cannot cut it back below the grafting point. However, it is necessary to remove all overgrowth below the grafting site so that non-varietal shoots do not suppress the growth of the grafted plant, otherwise the shrub will go wild.
Also read: The dogwood in the garden – 18 ideas for garden design