How to Prune Russian Laurel

Specimen Pruning

• 1

  Clean the blades of your bypass pruners and loppers with rubbing alcohol and a soft, clean cloth. Tools that are not sterile can pass disease from plant to plant.

• 2

  Clip off the flowers as they fade in May if desired. Gardeners in West Coast states may wish to remove spent blooms before they develop into fruit. Though this cultivar is not on an invasive species list, some English laurels are considered to have invasive tendencies. Varieties of the plant are known to grow in the wild in some areas of Washington, according to the King County Noxious Weed Control Program in Washington state. The seed is primarily spread by birds that eat its fruit.

• 3

  Remove diseased, damaged or crossing branches at their base with long-handled loppers at any time of the year. Wipe down the blades between cuts to avoid spreading disease to other parts of the shrub.

• 4

  Cut back tall branches to their next side, or lateral, branch with pruners to control the size of the Russian laurel. Leave no more than 1/4 inch of wood above the lateral branch, advises Purdue University Extension. After the plant flowers is the best time for this type of pruning.

Hedges

• 5

  Clean your hedge trimmers with rubbing alcohol to prevent the spread of disease to your Russian laurel hedge.

• 6

  Run the hedge trimmers over the upright face of the Russian laurel hedge starting at the top. Gradually slope your cut out as you move toward the bottom of the plant. By making the top of the shrub narrower than the bottom, none of the plant is shaded, so you don't get the leaf loss and leggy appearance common in hedges that are wider at the top.

• 7

  Evaluate the height of the hedge. As Russian laurels grow more wide than tall, you may not need to shear the top of the hedge every time. Purdue Extension discourages shearing hedges flat along the top if at all possible. Just trim off any branches extending up past the main body of the hedge.