When Is the Best Time to Trim a Hakuro Nishiki?

Pruning Season

• Prune the Hakuro-Nishiki dappled willow anytime from late winter to very early spring when the shrub is still dormant and no flowers or leaves have yet opened up. If a smaller, more formal-looking plant is desired, this pruning is required every year to keep it at a smaller size after the lush regrowth by summer. When plants become overly large or ragged-looking with age, prune more severely every one to three years. This is known as rejuvenation pruning.

Annual Pruning Maintenance

• The usual trimming and pruning on the dappled willow involves removing wayward, errant branches to tidy the shrub. Also cut away any crisscrossing branches that rub or grow inward across the central part of the shrub. You want all branches to grow outward to maintain good air and light penetration to the plant's interior. To reduce shrub size, trim back all branch ends by 10 to 50 percent. New growth, with more intensely colored pink and white hues, follows later in the spring and early summer.

Rejuvenation

• Rejuvenating an overgrown or unsightly shaped Hakuro Nishiki dappled willow occurs in the early spring, just before new leaves are beginning to open from the dormant buds. Cut back all branches to two or three buds on their bottom bases, leaving stubs 4 to 8 inches tall. Monitor regrowth through the early summer, as some sprouts may be so dense that some thinning out is needed to ensure that light and air reaches all parts of the shrub evenly.

Trimming Insight

• Because of the dappled willow's fast growth rate, it may be necessary to trim branch tips in early to midsummer to maintain the uniform silhouette, such as every four to six weeks. Tip-trimming can remove scorched leaves, but if too much branch tip is removed, the natural arching form is ruined. New growth sprouts within a few weeks after branch tips are cut. Do not tip-trim in the late summer or early fall, as regrowth will not mature enough to survive the onset of the initial frosts and freezes of autumn, causing irregular dieback.