How to Deal With Overgrown Shrubs

Ornamental shrubs in the home landscape need light but regular pruning to maintain health and encourage flowering production. Flowers and fruit are inhibited when shrubs are overgrown, and the shrubs become leggy. Some species can tolerate hard pruning and rebound quickly, but pruning will delay flowering for several years for some species. One way to renovate overgrown shrubs and encourage uninterrupted flowering is to prune old growth over a few years, limiting the removal of plant parts to one-third a year.

Things You'll Need

• Anvil pruners
• Lopping shears
• Pruning saw

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Instructions

1. • 1

     Remove dead, broken and diseased branches. Cut one-third of the oldest wood to ground level in the first year.

   • 2

     Remove one-third of the oldest wood and thin out new growth in the second year. Keep the healthiest shoots and cut the rest.

   • 3

     Remove all the remaining old wood in the third year. Thin new growth. Continue removing 2 or 3 of the largest and oldest stems annually.