It's not rocket science, but....

Now when it comes to pruning it helps to have a little knowledge on what you have growing in your front and back yards, but also the general do's and don'ts of pruning, which there is a lot of them because of the different species and seasons. But i wont go through all of them, rather i will go through a checklist you can use in determining how to prune each plant in your garden.

Firstly you have to identify the plants in your garden, that's always number one. without knowing what you have you could end up killing an established plant and be left to wonder what happened??, as last year you did the same, and it was fine.

Now this brings me into the second thing which is the Weather, climate zone or season in your area. It is vital to your plants health to know what time of year to prune it so when its in a vigorous growth period it will indeed grow many new limbs, leaves, flowers or fruit.

Thirdly always Deadwood and deadhead your plants which means any unruly dead or diseased limbs and buds should be pruned ASAP, doing this to avoid injury if limb was to fall on someone, or if diseased to stop killing the plant or inhibit the plants growth of new flowers of fruit. Deadheading is more complicated then just removing the bud, when dead heading especially roses it is vital to make a slanted cut back at the first set of 5 leaves leaving about 1 inch of stem to compensate for die back, this type of pruning is great for when a plant is in vigorous growth and you want it to flower for a longer period as this will encourage the plant to keep making more buds.

With the fourth important thing when pruning is equipment. It must be very sharp, very clean and Versatile no if or buts. The equipment for pruning can be expensive depending on what job you need it for, because many plants grow to different shapes and sizes. Ranging from a wide variety of secateurs, hand saws, loppers, tomahawks and extendable limb saws, it can all be very heavy on your pockets. My advice is if you are to purchase pruning equipment is to look at buying a good middle of the road pair of secateurs that are strong and can be sharpened many times and a hand saw, these two tools will do almost all your pruning that you can reach from the ground.

When doing any job in the garden attention to detail and being meticulous can be vital to the health of your garden. Whenever a corner is cut in terms of gardening things can all go horribly wrong, and that is why never take on a job if you are not committed to putting in the time to complete it. Thanks for reading and have fun out in the garden.