If a plant is healthy and relatively unstressed, the normal seasonal move to cooler weather triggers dormancy.

There’s a special kind of chaos that happens in your garden when fall fades and winter looms—leaves crunch underfoot, ...

Pruning doesn't have to feel overwhelming. A simple three-step rule can help you cut with confidence and keep your plants thriving through every season.

04:00, Sun, Sep 28, 2025 Updated: 10:25, Sun, Sep 28, 2025 Pruning is the primary care task necessary for Japanese maples to help them thrive for as long as possible. No matter the variety of Japanese ...

If you’ve ever wrestled with an overgrown fruit tree, you know the struggle: branches reaching for the sky, fruit hiding in a tangled mess and those pesky suckers popping up everywhere. But don’t ...

Pruning is my favorite gardening task, and now is a suitable time to start pruning shrubs that have put on growth and need shaping. Prune them as needed to keep them at the proper scale for your ...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. Pruning saws come in many shapes, but they all have one thing in common: They are all saws. Manual or not; gas, battery, and corded; ...

Q: We have a large tree-form lilac that needs to be trimmed back quite significantly. I can’t trim very far before I cut off a lot of leaves. What’s the best way to do this? Should I be concerned that ...

Two of my favorite flowering trees, and perhaps yours, too, are the redbud and lilacs. Both are just finishing their springtime show now and will concentrate on producing leaves, deepening their roots ...

Lilacs were planted by some of the early settlers, including my great-grandpa, John Bergmeier, not just for their beauty, but also because of their ability to survive and adapt to most climates, like ...

Many plants benefit from some type of pruning, whether it's a conservative reshaping or a harder cut to rejuvenate. One plant that benefits greatly from pruning is the lilac shrub. Over time, lilacs ...

What you need to do when the blooming season ends to make sure next year’s crop thrives. Light pruning of dead or damaged lilac branches should be done right after flowering finishes, but there’s an ...