When it’s your job to ensure your commercial property is healthy, safe, and visually appealing, you know that landscape maintenance isn’t only done during the warm weather months. There are many commercial landscape maintenance services — dormant pruning being one — you can be doing during the offseason so when the warm weather does arrive, your property is ready to be enjoyed by its residents and/or consumers.
Winter is the ideal time to perform dormant pruning on trees and shrubs for three main reasons:
In this blog, we’ll discuss what dormant pruning is, the differences between dormant and restorative pruning, and the dormant pruning benefits you’ll reap come spring.
As the name implies, you do this type of pruning only when plants are dormant — after summer growth stops and before new growth appears in spring. The ideal window of time for dormant pruning is November through the end of March, though this schedule is dictated by the weather.
Dormant pruning involves “corrective action” — really getting into the tree or shrub canopy and hard pruning branches to:
During the growing season, maintenance pruning is performed to maintain the shape of trees and shrubs and to keep plants within their footprints in a landscape bed. More serious pruning happens once plants go dormant.
Simply put, dormant pruning is trimming plants while they are not actively growing. Dormant pruning can involve light shaping or simply removing branches that are unhealthy.
Meanwhile, restorative pruning involves aggressively cutting back plants and removing approximately one-third of old wood. Restorative pruning is more visually obvious.
Both dormant and restorative pruning take place during late fall and winter, will preserve plant health, and ensure the safety of your property.
If done correctly and at the proper time of year, dormant pruning promotes plant health. Here are the dormant pruning benefits that you’ll see:
Winter is an ideal time for dormant pruning because plants are not stressed (growing requires a lot of energy). Also, during winter, major pruning efforts are not as noticeable to those who live, work, and play on your commercial property.
If you severely pruned a large hydrangea or rose bush in the middle of the summer, people would wonder, “What happened to that shrub?” There’s a good chance they won’t notice dormant pruning, since deciduous trees and shrubs have lost their leaves and people are less actively using outdoor spaces on your property.
For property owners who want to get a jump on spring, dormant pruning during winter in Ohio sets trees and shrubs up for healthy, new growth — and it’s a commercial landscape maintenance activity you can take care of while other tasks are on hold until warmer weather arrives.
Let’s talk more about dormant pruning for your landscape. fill out this simple contact form and we’ll get in touch with you.