The Best Time To Prune Your Weigela Plant (And How To Do It Like A Pro)
Weigela plants are decorative bushes that, because of their hardiness and beauty, make the perfect addition to any home landscaping scene and pair well when planted next to other plants of different shapes and sizes. Healthy weigelas grow quickly and can start to take up a space, making it important to properly prune these bushes once a year. The ideal time to prune is late spring and early summer after the blooming season has subsided. Remove any overgrowth, dead foliage, and excess branches during this time. However, don't go too overboard, as removing more than ⅓ of a weigela bush can cause stress and, in turn, result in an unhappy and unhealthy plant.
As perennials, weigelas have many different looks throughout each season. They grow lush green leaves in the spring, accompanied by blooming pink flowers, and go dormant and bare through the colder months. If maintained properly through routine pruning each year, you can enjoy a single weigela's life cycle for decades.
When to prune
For any plant, it is crucial to know when is the appropriate and most effective time to prune. Some plants can undergo heavy pruning with little strain throughout the course of a year, while others are more fragile, grow slower, and require much less interference. Weigelas can grow anywhere from 1 to 2 feet a year, depending on factors like climate and watering, making routine annual pruning an essential part of their life cycle.
The best time to prune and remove any excess foliage while promoting new growth on a weigela is after it is finished blooming, which occurs at the end of spring and the beginning of summer. Pruning at this point in the year and in the weigela's annual cycle ensures that your current flowers have had enough time to blossom. It is also early enough to avoid removing any branches of next year's flowers, which will start to grow later in the year.
Prune like a pro
Come to the end of spring, it is important to know the best practices of pruning a weigela to ensure its ultimate growth and success for upcoming years. Start by examining your plant. During this time, you can spot overgrowth that is running into other nearby plants, as well as any overwhelming signs of dead foliage. Unlike healthy branches, dead ones will stick out like a sore thumb in the warm months because they cannot grow leaves or flowers.
Once you have a solid visual, it's time to grab the clippers and get to work. Start by removing the obvious sections you discovered earlier, and work your way into the finer details. When cutting branches off of a weigela, be sure to snip after growth points, or where one branch splits in two. Be mindful of how much you are removing, and make sure to cut back no more than ⅓ of the bush. This annual spring cleaning is crucial to a weigela's health, but light pruning can be done all throughout the year. If you notice a stray branch or obvious signs of dead foliage, feel free to cut it off to keep your weigelas looking their absolute best year-round.