Pruning Your Burning Bushes

One of the favorite choices for landscaping and gardens in general are burning bushes, because of their stunning foliage and low maintenance demands.

The only thing they need is pruning – the smaller species, which grows up to 6 feet, less pruning, the larger one more as they can also be shaped into anything you want. This can be done anytime you want because they are tough and they can tolerate it; so get your shears and get to it if yours is starting to block access, has diseased branches or leaves or you simply want it smaller.

Or, if you really want to escape pruning altogether then you could plant it in a place where you can leave it grow as large as it will.

You can try the square or rectangular shape, but we recommend the tree shape or the globe because the bush doesn’t naturally grow in angles. To give it the tree shape you need to keep some of the vertical ones bare then trim the upper part in a semi-circle.

For the globe effect you need to pick a think branch as the trunk, trim out some of the excess ones then give it the globular shape, starting with the edges, bit by bit. Any way you choose, we advise you not to cut it down too much, say less than 12 inches high, because it is too extreme and it might not recover.

Take note they grow very fast, so if you find this to demanding you can replace them with other shrubs, like chokeberry or oak leaf hydrangea.

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