These 7 Plants Need Pruning Before Winter – November is Your Last Chance to Make the Cut

While the cold weather and dropped leaves of November make it seem as if the gardening season is over, there’s still one task left: pruning. Certain plants benefit from a pre-winter trim, while others shouldn’t be touched with pruners until next year.

Some perennials should be cut back all the way right now, while other types of plants, like fruiting vines and certain shrubs, can be touched up more lightly. Exact timing for these tasks depends on your location, weather, and the plant.

Here, we’ll outline some late fall pruning basics and list some of the plants you can tidy up or trim back now, before winter fully takes hold. We also share which plants are better trimmed next season.

November Pruning Tips

• Start with good, sharp tools, like pruning shears and loppers. Felco's F6 Bypass Pruning Shears, available on Amazon, were rated the best pruners in our testing. Keep them sharp with a Corona sharpener. Make sure they’re clean and disinfect the blades when moving between plants to avoid spreading disease. You can use rubbing alcohol or a bleach solution.
• It’s always a good idea to remove broken, damaged, or diseased branches and stems, regardless of how hard you’re pruning a plant. If any of the plant material looks diseased, dispose of it in the garbage, not in your compost pile.
• When cutting back perennials, make clean cuts and avoid cutting all the way back to the crown or damaging the crown. Leave a couple of inches of stems above the plant’s crown.
• When pruning deciduous shrubs, wait until dormancy. The timing will depend on your climate and the local weather this year. Dormancy means the plant is less likely to shoot out vulnerable new growth in response to pruning cuts.
• If you’re trimming overgrown hedges or shrubs, make cuts in the interior of the plant. This will open it up and allow sunlight in to stimulate growth next year.

1. Peonies

Peonies are notoriously susceptible to fungal diseases. The deciduous foliage will die back in fall and, if left in place, can allow fungal spores to overwinter and reinfect plants next year. Trim back foliage once the leaves have yellowed or browned, or earlier if they look diseased.

November is the right time for this chore in many places, but if you garden in a warmer climate, the timing might be later. Remove all of the foliage without cutting it too close to the plant’s crown.

2. Hostas

Another herbaceous perennial common in many gardens, hostas die back in fall. Clearing away the spent foliage tidies up beds, makes spring cleaning easier, and prevents many pests and diseases from overwintering and spreading. Cut leaves back to the base without getting too close to or cutting into the crowns. As long as leaves are still green, keep them in place to collect energy. Wait until they die back.

3. Bearded Iris

Gardeners are often tempted to cut back the leaves of these early bloomers soon after flowering, but it’s important to wait. The green leaves continue collecting energy to store for next year’s flowers. As long as they are healthy, keep the leaves in place until they start dying back in fall. November is a typical time for pruning bearded irises in many gardens. Cut the fans back to four to six inches (10 to 15 cm).

4. Daylilies

As with irises, you don’t want to trim back leaves just because the plants have finished flowering. Let healthy, green leaves stay in place to gather energy. For many gardeners, daylily leaves will be ready to cut back by November. In warmer climates, you might not trim them back until December. Cut daylily leaves back to a few inches above the ground.

5. Summer-Fruiting Raspberries

Summer-fruiting raspberries develop fruit on canes that are two years old. Once they’re done fruiting, these older canes use up energy that the plant could be using on new canes and next year’s fruit. Identify the older, woodier canes that fruited this year, and trim them back to the ground.

You’ll also see newer, greener canes. Do not cut these back, or you’ll lose next year’s berries. Tie them together or to a support, like a fence, to protect them from winter winds.

6. Grapevines

Grapevines need regular pruning to maintain their size and structure and to support abundant fruit production. Timing is important. The vines should be dormant, so they don’t lose too much sap or sprout fresh growth. You also don’t want to prune too late, after hard freezes turn vines too brittle to make clean cuts.

When you find the right time to prune your grapevines, remove dead, damaged, or poorly positioned vines and canes. Identify healthy, young vines and trim around these. Don’t remove all older wood, especially the main trunk and arms.

7. Lavender

Lavender hedges that are cold-hardy, like English lavender, benefit from a late fall or early winter trim to maintain their shape and health and protect them from winter weather. Too much material left on the plants can accumulate snow and ice that damage the crowns. Trim these lavenders back by about a third before the real freezing weather begins.

Fall Pruning Essentials

What Not to Prune in November

While these are examples of plants you can and should tackle this time of year, there are also plants that should not be trimmed now.

• Spring-Blooming Shrubs. Shrubs like forsythia and lilac should not be trimmed now because they have already developed next year’s flower buds on this year’s growth. These shrubs should be pruned right after flowering in late spring or early summer.
• Bigleaf and Oakleaf Hydrangea. These types of hydrangeas flower on old wood, so trimming them now ruins next year’s blooms. You can trim smooth and panicle hydrangeas in November if they’ve gone dormant.
• Roses. Roses are generally best trimmed in late winter or early spring. Hard fall pruning exposes them to winter damage. Trim lightly to remove damaged or dead material, but leave the heavier pruning for later.

As a good general rule, you can trim back damaged, dead, or diseased stems and branches from any plant at any time of year. However, harder maintenance pruning needs careful timing. These plants are examples of those that can take a hard trim as winter is about to set in. Most importantly, know which plants and varieties you have and what the best practices are for these before you begin any pruning project.