Pruning is often thought of as just a winter gardening task, but there are a number of great reasons to prune your plants in July.
Now is an excellent time for restorative pruning. Gardeners can correct problems that have resulted from over-pruning or poor pruning.
At this time it is also easier to evaluate the plant’s canopy for health and vigour. Gardeners can see exactly what they are removing, such as defective limbs.
However, it’s vital to avoid aggressive pruning in summer as major structural pruning should wait until the plant is dormant in winter. Improper pruning will stress the plant as gardeners might cut off valuable buds.
To give gardeners a helping hand, gardening guru Monty Don has shared how to go about pruning four plants that require it this month.
What to prune in July
1. Early-flowering perennials
Early flowering perennials such as oriental poppies, delphiniums and hardy geraniums should “all be cut back to the ground” to encourage “fresh regrowth and repeat flowering” in a couple of months time, according to the expert.
What’s more, this also helps to create space for tender annuals and perennials in borders.
The expert instructed gardeners to remove all cut material to the compost heap, weed around the base of the plants, water if necessary and avoid planting too close to them so that they have light and space to regrow and flower again at the end of summer.
2. Rambling roses
It is “very important” to keep deadheading roses as the petals fade to “encourage repeat flowering”, but some roses have now finished all that they are going to do this year.
Most ramblers fall into this category and “should be pruned as soon as they have finished flowering”.
If gardeners are in doubt as to whether their rose is a climber or a rambler, “ramblers tend to be much more vigorous and always have a mass of small flowers that never repeat” once they have finished.
3. Apples and pear trees
Pruning apples and pears at this time of year in summer is “very useful” for trained forms or mature trees that have become too large or crowded.
Unlike winter pruning, done when the tree is dormant, this hard cutting back “will not stimulate vigorous regrowth”.
Unless you are training a particular new shoot, Monty instructed: “Remove all this year’s growth back to a couple of pairs of leaves (usually about two to four inches) being careful not to remove any ripening fruits.”
Cutting it back now also allows light and air onto the fruit that is ripening and stops trees becoming too crowded with unproductive branches.
4. Currants
After gooseberries and red and white currants have been harvested, it is a good idea to give them a “summer prune”.
To do so, remove any new growth that is crowding the centre of the bushes and cut back the new shoots gardeners wish to keep by about a third. This will let light and air into the plant, encouraging the wood to ripen and spurs to form which will carry next year’s fruits.
Blackcurrants can be pruned hard – removing up to a third of each bush – immediately after harvest.
