Prune these evergreens now

A lot of evergreen shrubs look safest left alone in spring, but April is exactly when many of them recover fastest from a trim: new growth is starting, cut marks disappear quickly, and the risk from late frost is lower if you wait until your local last frost is near or past. (gardeningknowhow.com) (rhs.org.uk) The basic rule is simple: prune after you see fresh spring growth, and don’t do it before a cold snap that can burn tender new shoots. The Royal Horticultural Society says most evergreen shrubs are best pruned in mid to late spring, after frost risk has passed, because new growth then hides pruning scars. (gardeningknowhow.com) (rhs.org.uk) Gardening Know How’s April list has eight shrubs: lavender, santolina, boxwood, laurel, hebes, privet, heather, and arborvitae. The split is useful, because some are clipped mainly for shape, while others are cut to keep them from getting woody and bare inside. (gardeningknowhow.com) Lavender and heather are the easiest examples of “cut now, but not too deep.” The Royal Horticultural Society says both flower on new wood, and Gardening Know How says to remove spent lavender stems plus about an inch of leafy growth without cutting into old woody stems that may not resprout. (rhs.org.uk) (gardeningknowhow.com) Boxwood, privet, and arborvitae are the neat-fence plants in this group, so the April job is mostly about contour. Gardening Know How recommends pruning once the first flush starts so the shrubs thicken up for the rest of the year, and its older evergreen pruning guide adds that needled evergreens such as arborvitae are best pruned in early spring. (gardeningknowhow.com 1) (gardeningknowhow.com 2) Laurel and hebes can take a spring tidy too, but the goal is not to turn them into hard cubes unless they are being used as formal hedges. The Royal Horticultural Society advises removing dead, damaged, and badly placed shoots first, then thinning crowded growth, with roughly one-third of older wood as an upper limit on a standard prune. (rhs.org.uk) Santolina is the shrub on the list that most rewards a small annual haircut, because it gets leggy fast if you skip a year. The Royal Horticultural Society groups small evergreen shrubs like this with lavender and heathers, noting that annual pruning helps flowering, extends lifespan, and slows the slide into woody, sparse growth. (rhs.org.uk) There is one important exception hidden inside any April pruning advice: spring-flowering broadleaf evergreens are on a different clock. Gardening Know How says azaleas and rhododendrons should be pruned after flowering if they bloom on last season’s wood, which is why “prune evergreens now” is not the same as “prune every evergreen now.” (gardeningknowhow.com) The fastest way to get this wrong is to cut into leafless old wood, shear before the last hard frost, or keep pruning into late summer. Gardening Know How warns that late-season pruning can leave new growth too soft to harden before winter, and the April article adds one more check before you start: look for nesting birds and stop if you find them. (gardeningknowhow.com 1) (gardeningknowhow.com 2)