What are the several tasks included in pruning flowers and trees?
This article shares some basic knowledge and tips about caring for flowers, including the tasks involved in pruning flowers and trees. Let's delve into a comprehensive introduction.
Pruning is one of the important methods to cultivate healthy flowers and trees. If left to grow naturally, all flowers and trees will lose their ornamental value. Pruning not only creates a good plant shape but also regulates the reasonable distribution of nutrients within the plant, prevents excessive growth of branches and leaves, promotes bud differentiation and blooming; it also creates a favorable ventilation and lighting environment, reducing the occurrence of diseases and pests. Flower and tree pruning mainly includes the following six tasks:
(1) Cutting back: Cutting off 1/3 to 3/4 of the tip of a branch is called cutting back, which aims to stop the endless extension of the branch while promoting the germination of axillary buds below the cut, thereby growing more lateral branches to increase flowering sites, making the plant shape more full and round, and preventing the inside of the tree from becoming hollow. To make the canopy extend outward and have distinct layers of branches, the cut should be made above an axillary bud that grows outward. After the cut bud germinates, it will allow the extension branch of the mother branch to extend to the periphery of the canopy, avoiding inward-growing branches.
(2) Thinning: When the branches inside the plant are too dense, some should be removed from the base. The branches to be thinned include crossing branches, parallel branches, inward branches, diseased branches, and old branches, to prevent the tree shape from becoming disordered, making them have clear layers, which is beneficial for ventilation, lighting, and flowering. When thinning, the unwanted branches should be cut close to the bark of the mother branch without leaving any stubs.
(3) Pinching: Cutting off or removing the terminal bud of a branch is called pinching. Herbs such as chrysanthemum, salvia, China aster, and phlox need to be pinched. If left to grow naturally, they can only grow into a single tall plant with few flowers, unable to form a full and round plant cluster. Pinching the growth point of the main branch can stop the plant from growing taller and stimulate the germination of axillary buds to form many lateral branches; pinching the lateral branches can also form more secondary lateral branches, doubling the number of flowering sites.
(4) Removing buds: Removing the axillary buds from a branch is called debudding. When cultivating large single-flowered pot plants like chrysanthemum and dahlia, to ensure only one large flower per pot and highlight the variety characteristics, it is necessary to remove the side buds in the leaf axils promptly, leaving only the terminal bud to grow, which will eventually differentiate into a flower bud and bloom, preventing the consumption of nutrients due to the growth of lateral branches. Debudding work also includes eliminating the suckers that sprout in the potting soil.
(5) Removing buds: To ensure the quality of the flowers and increase the diameter of each flower head, it is necessary to reduce the number of flowers. Chrysanthemum, dahlia, peony, and牡丹 all produce several buds on a single branch. If allowed to bloom simultaneously, the flowers will be small. Therefore, after the buds appear, most of the time only the central main bud is retained, and the surrounding secondary buds are removed.
(6) Thinning flowers: For most ornamental fruit plants, the number of flowers exceeds the number of fruit-setting. If not thinned, and allowed to grow into young fruits, most of these young fruits will naturally fall off, consuming a large amount of nutrients for no reason. The remaining fruits cannot guarantee quality. It is better to thin the dense flower spikes during the flowering period. However, this does not mean that the number of fruits left on each branch equals the number of flowers. Since not all the flowers may set fruit, the number of flowers should be 2 to 3 times the expected fruit-setting number. After the fruits have basically set (late June to early July), the excess young fruits should be thinned again.
The above sharing covers all the tasks involved in pruning flowers and trees for your comprehensive understanding and reference!