How to Prune Holly Bushes

Holly bushes make a gorgeous winter plant, with tiny red berries delivering aesthetic appeal in a cold and bleak season. While holly makes a festive holiday decoration, gardeners must perform a more vital pruning of this bush than collecting greens for a table display. When you know how to prune holly bushes, you keep the plant healthy and cosmetically attractive.

When to Prune 
A common question is when to trim a holly bush plant. Most folks can prune a holly bush when the plant is dormant in the wintertime. December is an excellent time for pruning holly bushes. Trimming holly bushes aids in giving them a neat appearance and keeping them in shape. However, not all types of holly bushes are pruned at the same time. It is vital to know when to prune the different varieties of holly bushes.

Otherwise, you could unintentionally get pricked by holly leaves. Examine your holly bush for diseased, dead, or damaged limbs. Dead wood will be hollow to the touch. Damaged and diseased wood will have nicks and cuts as well as being physically marred with discolored timber.

How to Prune
Mix a solution of water and bleach in a bucket. Dip your pruning shears into the solution, then cut away the rotten wood. Cut off these branches at their intersection with the main branch or trunk. Use pruners for tiny cuts and lopping shears for thicker limbs that are difficult to cut with the small pruners.

Clean your pruners between cuts. Throw away all dead and infected wood in a garbage bin, then sterilize all your gardening equipment and wipe them dry with a towel. Get rid of the bleach solution. It’s okay to perform a DIY holly bush trim job. However, if you need tree cutting or stump grinding service, you should call a professional stump service company.

Thin out packed areas of the canopy to encourage air circulation, which keeps your holly healthy. Use pruners to take off weak limbs and branches that push up against other branches. Chop all the growth off at the base.

Take off downward-growing or low-growing branches from the holly bush by cutting them off at the bottom. Don’t cut into the swollen tissue or the collar on the trunk that indicates the branch intersection with the trunk.

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