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Gardening With Allen: Power clippers can make shrubs too thick

By Allen Wilson for The Columbian
Published: November 26, 2019, 6:03am

I don’t have a lot of time for gardening so I use the most efficient methods possible, including power clippers. My neighbor says that trimming with hand pruners is better for the shrubs and usually more efficient over time. Can you explain how hand pruning can be more efficient than power clippers?

Power clippers are an appropriate tool for pruning hedges because we like hedges to be thick and dense. Hedges are often used as a substitute for a fence. When power clippers are used to prune shrubs they soon also become thick like hedges. After two or three clippings they begin to look like balls and boxes instead of plants. Their natural shape, thickness and beauty are lost.

Power clippers remove the ends of many branches at one time. When the tips of branches are removed the natural regrowth is three or more branches for every one that is pruned. Plants grow three times as thick as before pruning. After the second pruning plants become three times three, or 27 times as thick.

When shrubs are pruned one branch at a time, only a few branches normally need to be pruned. They can and should be pruned back inside the plant just above a side branch. The regrowth from this type of cut is one for one, keeping the natural thickness of the plant.

Shrubs that require repeated hard pruning because of their rapid regrowth are poorly adapted to their location. All plants have a natural mature size which they usually reach after about 10 years of unrestricted growth. Plant labels almost always list mature size. Shrubs that mature at 5 feet should not be planted where there is only room for 3-foot plants. The best solution for this problem would be to move the oversize plants to a place where they have room to grow to their natural mature size, and replace them with the appropriate size plant. Then very little pruning will be required.

Select carefully

If shrubs are selected so that they fit their location, only a few branches that grow extra long will need to be shortened. These branches should be individually pruned down inside the shrub just above a side branch. If labels are checked carefully when making purchases, appropriate size shrubs can be chosen. Full-service nurseries and garden stores have trained personnel who can assist in the selection of shrubs which fit specific locations, including size and also sun/shade requirements. They also have larger selections of shrubs.

Sometimes shrub growth becomes thicker than is desirable, such as when power clippers have been used. Then the best way to make them thinner is to remove entire branches back to their origin. Sometimes a large branch with multiple layers of branching can be removed to achieve rapid thinning.

In summary, when pruning the tips of branches (as inevitably happens with power clippers), shrubs become artificially thick. When individual branches are pruned inside the plant just above a side branch, shrubs remain at their normal thickness. When entire branches are removed back to their origin, plants become thinner or more open.

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