Pruning is often dressed up as complicated and difficult, but follow these simple rules and you’ll have healthier and happier plants on your hands
When it comes to things that fill newbie gardeners with fear, pruning has got to come pretty high on the list. Those cat’s cradle diagrams in old-school gardening books, including strict rules about timings and even the angle at which you make each cut, are pretty daunting even to a botanist like me. But here’s the good news: much of this complicated advice is not strictly necessary and studies have shown you can greatly simplify the whole process and get the same results.
Once you understand the science behind why pruning works it all becomes far easier to get right and remember, too. So here’s a botanist’s express class in the science of pruning.