Be Brave and Give These 6 Plants a Hard Prune in Early March – You’ll Get Great Results, Even if You’re a Beginner Gardener

I can remember the very first time I pruned a shrub. It was an enormous butterfly bush and I was so worried I’d kill it, I scarcely nipped three inches from the stem ends. Looking back, I realise my tentative attempts at pruning did more harm than good, and my Buddleia would have been happier if I’d simply done nothing at all. That’s because, with some plants, you’ve got to hand out tough love and hard prune, rather than just giving them a little tickle with your titanium-coated blades.

Be brave, and you’ll be rewarded with bigger flowers, more color, and strong new growth. And I promise, once you know that it’s okay to give these plants a pixie cut of a prune, you’ll have so much fun snipping off their stems. Many of these plants have woody stems so assisted-action hand pruners or loppers, both from Amazon, make cutting easier, or use a small pruning saw like this 10-inch tool, also from Amazon.

When you’re hard pruning, timing is important, and the right moment varies according to your USDA zone. These are all plants you can prune around early March, because you need to chop them before they start growing in earnest in spring. Some are better earlier, some a little later, so be sure to adjust timings for your zone (all the details you need to decide the exact right moment are below).

1. Smooth & Panicle Hydrangeas

Both smooth hydrangeas (Hydrangea arborescens) and panicle hydrangeas (H. paniculata) grow their flowers on new wood. This means that giving them a prune in late winter or early spring stimulates lots of fresh new stems, so you get plenty of flowers. Not sure what type of hydrangea you have? This simple check will tell you for sure, and how to prune your hydrangea type.

Wait until after your last hard frost then be brutal when you prune smooth and panicle hydrangeas, cutting off around a third of last year’s growth to just above a pair of buds. If you want seriously big blooms, then you can be even harsher, cutting to around 8–10 inches from the ground. Hard-pruning for huge hydrangea blooms directs all the plant’s energy into growing enormous flowers, though there will be fewer of them.

2. Butterfly Bush

Buddleja davidii also flowers on new wood so you can safely snip off stems in late winter or early spring without sacrificing this summer’s blooms. It’s a vigorous grower, too, and its stems can get long, leggy and seriously untidy, so a brutal prune keeps it in shape and a manageable size, too. How much you chop off depends on what size plant you want – you can cut those unruly stems down to two feet from the ground and your butterfly bush will still burst back into a sizeable shrub. Prune butterfly bush once the risk of hard frost has passed and buds are starting to burst open.

3. Group 3 Clematis

March is the perfect time to prune Group 3 clematis, after the worst frosts have passed. And boy, can you prune clematis hard! Group 3 clematis are those that flower in late summer, on new growth made that season, and include popular cultivars ‘Abundance’ and ‘Princess Diana’. As soon as you spot buds showing signs of growth, cut all the stems to around one foot above ground level, just above a strong pair of buds. You should do this even if your clematis was only planted a year or two ago, as it will encourage lots of new stems to grow from the base.

It’s well worth being brave as left unpruned, this type of clematis will typically grow one or two base stems, and flower on the new growth that emerges from the top of last year’s stems, so all the blooms will be above head height.

4. Hardy Fuchsia

Give your hardy fuchsia some touch love in spring and you’ll enjoy far more flowers in late summer or fall. All fuchsias flower on new growth, so this will bring bountiful blooms. Wait till after your last frost date in mid-to-late spring: frost can damage the tender new shoots that emerge post-prune, and the old growth that you’re going to snip off is doing a valuable job of insulating the plant. The perfect moment to prune hardy fuchsia is when it's just starting to grow leaves.

Then cut back all the thicker stems to around 4 inches above the ground, just above a pair of leaf buds. This looks drastic, but don’t be scared! A mature fuchsia that needs regenerating can even be cut back to ground level to stimulate fresh new shoots.

5. American Beautyberry

Callicarpa Americana is another new-wood bloomer, so giving it a harsh haircut in late winter or early spring will bring more abundant flowers, and so berries. The more sunlight it gets, the more berries it will grow, too, and pruning will allow more light to the stems. It’s best to prune this shrub before it gets busy growing in spring, so get cracking.

You can safely prune beautyberry stems to around a foot above the ground, as it's such a fast grower. If you want a taller plant – and this shrub can grow to 6 feet high at a speed of 1–2 feet each summer – just cut a third of the stems (choose the tallest ones) to a foot high each year. That will rejuvenate the entire plant over three years for plenty of berries, while allowing it to grow taller.

6. Twig Dogwood

We grow twig dogwoods for their fabulous flame-toned stem color, and fresh young stems have the strongest tones. So be brave and cut all Cornus sericea and C. alba stems to 2–4 inch stubs. Such a harsh prune does cause the plant to work hard, so it’s important that there’s a strong root system to provide enough energy. That means it’s best to let a plant establish itself in a new home for a couple of years before hard pruning like this.

An alternative, once your plant is mature enough, is to prune only a third of the stems to this height every year (so you renew all stems over three years), or hard-prune the lot every two years instead.

Hard-Pruning for Health

As well as hard-pruning all these plants, it's best to be brutal when it comes to removing dead, damaged or diseased material from any of your other plants, too. The winter chill often kills weaker stems, while storms can damage and even snap them. Early spring is a good time to remove all these points where disease could potentially enter your plant, so remove these stems back to just above a bud, or cut flush to a main stem or the ground, whichever seems most sensible. If your plant flowers on old wood, you'll lose some of this summer's blooms, but it's a sacrifice worth making.

You’ll be able to spot signs of disease easily at this time of the year, too. Get rid of any diseased sections now, before the oncoming warm weather kickstarts its spread. It’s best to err on the side of caution and cut well below the diseased section, and be sure to disinfect your hand pruners after every cut so as not to spread infection. The best way is to dip the blades in isopropyl alcohol, available from Amazon – any percentage from 70% upwards will do the job.

I hope you have a happy time pruning – it's such a satisfying task once you can cut with confidence.