Pruning your plants can be quite daunting – because you don’t want to take too much, or too little, and risk undoing all the hard work you’ve done in the garden
Pruning can be a daunting task for gardeners, but it’s also one of the most important jobs if you want your outdoor space to look good year after year.
In theory pruning your plants can make them grow back even healthier, but what if you cut off too much? Which parts do you take off? After all, you don’t want to undo all the hard work and hours you’ve spent in your garden.
But luckily, keen gardener Dave, also known as Dave the Plantman, shared a ‘basic pruning’ guide online – and others commended him for his ‘simple’ and ‘brilliant’ explanation. Taking to his @davetheplantman account on TikTok, Dave explained the root and plant which you can see above ground are “always equal”.
And if you want a plant to “grow back with lots of vigour to get really big again”, you need to cut something back equally hard. “If you’ve got a big plant and you chop it really, really hard back it’ll probably put great, long, thin shoots on but get back to the same size.”
However, this isn’t desirable to everyone, or for every plant. So if you “want to keep it smaller”, Dave recommends just trimming the tips off, so “it’ll only grow back a bit, rather than really whacking it back”. According to the savvy gardener, this rule also applies for when you want to move a plant.
The best time to move a plant is in the autumn, but Dave also has a tip which will make it “bounce back” to what it looked like before. He continued: “If you’re going to move a plant, take it right back to nothing, then move it, then it’s got a big root, little top, and it’s got more chance of bouncing back and coming back at you.”
It’s important to remember all these are “rules of thumb,” and according to Dave, all plants are different. So if you’re struggling, it’s worth researching the particular plant you’re having trouble with.
Garden enthusiasts were blown away with Dave’s explanation, with someone writing: “This was brilliant, and a simple way to explain it.” Another added: “I never knew this. I was scared it would die if cutting back hard to only have the trunk.”
