Spring Pruning Masterclass

Now is the perfect time to get your spring garden ready for the year ahead. Follow Frances Tophill and head gardener Tom Brown's expert pruning advice to ensure your garden's blooming in 2022

- By Frances Tophill and Tom Brown. Photographs by Sarah Cuttle, West Dean Gardeners, Jason Ingram and Getty

Pruning books and some websites can be incredibly daunting, full of jargon and complicated diagrams, which can put us off even getting our loppers out of the shed. Fear not, pruning is a lot more straightforward than you think and by following a few simple rules we can achieve much healthier shrubs. As sap rises through stems, plants can respond incredibly quickly to pruning by healing wounds and growing beyond those cuts.

Spring pruning encourages strong growth and is suited for plants that we grow for stem colour, foliage or those which flower in winter or later in the summer.Pruning tends to be more radical in spring because plants have a whole growing season to recover before the year is out.Waiting until March allows the worst of the winter weather to pass as this can damage the fragile young shoots that follow this style of pruning. Climate needs to be considered here, too: the warmer and more sheltered your garden, the earlier you can get the secateurs out; if you're in a frost pocket then it's best to wait a few more weeks.

Spring pruning can be divided into two groups: deciduous shrubs, which lose their leaves in winter, including winter-flowering shrubs; and evergreen and more tender shrubs, which should be pruned in late spring as they are still growing (albeit slowly) and whose young growth is more sensitive to a hard frost.

LOOK OUT FOR

Plant problems You can reduce spring aphid numbers while pruning

Early spring

Early spring is one of the most exciting times of the year. You can almost see the garden waking up. From early March to mid-April, we need to prune shrubs for stem colour and shrubs that flower in late summer and winter.Major rejuvenation pruning can take place too, including coppicing. Some grasses can also be cut back to make way for new shoots.

Late-summer flowering shrubs