MINTER: Pruning your flowering bushes properly? Here’s what you need to know

Published 5:30 am Saturday, February 21, 2026

When we get a few nice days, especially during our mild late winter, it’s nice to go out into the garden and get our plants pruned and cleaned up for the growing season.

Flowering shrubs can bring such an incredible sequence of color to our gardens, but unfortunately, many of them fail to deliver simply because they are pruned at the wrong time of year. The key to understanding when to prune is the timing of their flowering period.

To be safe, as a rule of thumb, let them flower first, then prune. By doing so, you are able to enjoy the flowers, then start the pruning process to maintain height and shape, allowing the new growth to develop and set buds for next year’s flowers.

Right now, we are enjoying our winter flowering viburnums, witch hazels, honeysuckle, heather, fragrant sarcococcas, and prunus mume known as Chinese flowering apricots.

Once they have completely finished flowering and the new growth begins, it’s time to cut them back.

Flowering quince or chaenomeles, forsythia, kerria japonica, red flowering currants, and deciduous azaleas are loaded with buds, ready to spice up our late winter and early spring gardens so please wait until they have finished blooming before you prune.

Perhaps the most confusing plants to prune are hydrangeas. The Mophead or macrophylla varieties are already loaded with big buds, ready to flower in June and July.

It’s incredibly important to leave them alone. If you need to prune back some of the older, taller varieties, you must do it by the end of July to ensure the new growth has time to set buds for next year’s show.

Late summer flowering varieties like the old-fashioned h. arborescens Annabelle and the cone shaped blossoms of the PG, or h. paniculata grandiflora varieties, bloom on new growth, so now is the ideal time to cut them back. This will result in more blooms on a more compact plant.

All the beautiful spiraeas can be a little confusing too because some bloom early while others tend to bloom later in the summer. The key is to remember when they bloom, then prune accordingly.

Late flowering shrubs like weigela, hibiscus, potentillas, and sambucus, or elderberries can all be pruned now to maintain their shape, and you will still get beautiful flowers.

Roses, depending upon the type, should be pruned too, but only after the last hard frost, which is usually in late February or early March.

The bottom line is: if you can see blossom buds on your flowering trees and shrubs, enjoy the show first, then prune if you need to after.