8 words you need to have in your pruning vocabulary

There are many ways to prune, so pruning practices have their own vocabulary. Choosing the right approach will make a huge difference in the results you get when you prune your plants, as well as in how often they need additional shaping. Here are eight terms you should have in your pruning vocabulary.

If you prune trees and shrubs when they are young, shaping them as they grow, they will need less pruning as they mature.

• Work with the natural shape of the plant whenever possible.
• While the tree is young and lower branches are small, nip them off so you won't have to remove them when they're large. This will prevent unsightly scarring.
• A second reason to prune is to relieve plants of dead or diseased parts. Good pruning and grooming practices will minimize how much damage your plants must endure from cold or diseases caused by too little sunshine and fresh air.

Deadheadig is removing the spent blossoms of flowering plants to encourage continued blooming.

• It keeps plants from wasting their energy producing seeds and makes them look neater.

Heading back is cutting back the main branches of a tree or shrub by at least half their length.

• This stimulates new growth, which emerges from the buds closest to the cut stubs' ends.

Limbing up is removing the lower branches of a mature tree.

• Limbing up raises the shade canopy, which benefits grasses and ground covers by increasing available light.
• It also opens up the space under the tree for recreation or relaxation.

Pinching is removing the growing tip of a plant to encourage the formation of bushy growth and improved blooming.

• Late-blooming perennials such as chrysanthemums and asters benefit greatly from early-season pinching.

Pollarding is a specialized form of pruning used to create a formal shape or restrict the crown of a mature tree.

• Some weeping trees and shrubs are handled this way at a young age, as are those forced to grow into broad umbrella shapes.

Shearing is cutting back numerous stem tips across a flat plane, as is done with hedges or shrubs that are pruned to formal shapes.

• Depending on the plant, shearing must be done two or more times during the growing season.

Thinning is removing entire branches flush with the trunk or pruning out selected lateral branches. Sucker-producing shrubs also are pruned by thinning out old branches at the soil line.

• Thinning takes out older growth, often without stimulating new growth.

Topping is a drastic cutting back of large branches on a mature tree. This practice is no longer recommended, as it traumatizes the tree and leads to weak new growth.