10 Plants That Must Be Pruned in January or February

January and February may not necessarily be the months when we enjoy the fruits of our labor, but that doesn’t mean we can’t use them as stepping stones to set our gardens up for success for the growing season to come. 

Mid-to-late January and all of February are when I do a significant part of my pruning for the year, since I leave most of my perennials and shrubs in place during the fall season. 

For a novice gardener, pruning before spring may sound weird (it did to me in the beginning). But we have our reasons why we prune some plants in January and February.   

Generally, we prune before the growing season starts for one (or several) of three main reasons:

• For better yield and stronger plants for fruiting shrubs such as gooseberries, currants and fall-fruiting raspberries, it’s also the period with the lowest sap flow for fruit trees such as apples and pears.
• For keeping fast-growers in check, a necessary step for ornamentals such as wisteria, buddleia and trumpet vine;
• For a quick tidy-up and reshaping of ornamental plants and shrubs that we don’t necessarily prune every year. 

However, there are some categories of plants that we should absolutely avoid pruning at this time of year, such as:

• Shrubs that bloom on old wood (last year’s growth), such as lilacs, French hydrangeas, rhododendrons and Japanese spirea;  
• Vines that bloom on old wood, such as Group 1 clematis;
• Shrubs that are already in bloom or will bloom in the first few months of the year, such as witch hazel, forsythia and camellias. 

Warning: Pruner’s discretion advised!

There’s one thing I would like to ask you before we get started with this list. 

Don’t just put your tablet down (or are you reading this on a phone?), grab your garden shears, go outside and start snipping away … just because I said you could. 

You have to assess your surroundings, your climate and your weather forecast first. This is universally true, but especially more so in the winter. 

Don’t prune just yet if there’s any frost forecast in your area. Cutting into frozen wood is rarely a clean cut. And exposing the inner layers of trees and shrubs to freezing temperatures can lead to tissue damage, which, in turn, increases the risk of disease.  

Schedule your winter pruning on winter days when the weather remains dry and above freezing temperatures. 

Here’s what you can prune this winter when the timing is right:

1. Hydrangeas that grow on new wood 

But Mickey, didn’t you just write – about half a page above this very paragraph – that we shouldn’t prune hydrangeas?

Dear reader, I did indeed mention French hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla), to my estimation, the most popular type grown in North America. That’s because this type of hydrangea has already formed this year’s flowers on last year’s wood. It’s what we call an old wood hydrangea, so if needed, we’ll prune it after it blooms.  

However, there are two types that we can prune now: panicle hydrangea (H. paniculata) and smooth-leaf hydrangea (H. arborescens). They form their flowers on new wood. We can prune panicle hydrangea back to a shorter framework, taking a third to a half off the top, depending on what shape and size we’re going for. 

Smooth-leaf hydrangea, on the other hand, can grow up to five feet (1.5 meters) this summer. So we can cut it closer to the ground now. It will quickly recover, and the new buds will start to swell again come spring. 

And just so you know what to put on your calendar, here’s a list of five spring jobs your hydrangea will thank you for. 

2. Climbing and shrub roses

We won’t prune roses as drastically as we prune hydrangeas, but fast-growing roses still need a good trim every year in order to encourage maximum bloom. And now’s a good time to do it. 

As usual with roses, we’ll focus on the 3D prune: dead, diseased and damaged canes. 

If a cane looks dead, prune it as low as possible. If a cane is damaged – perhaps the wind shook it a bit too much this winter, the choice is a bit more subjective. But if the damage is serious and unlikely to scab over, cut right below the damage to completely remove it. 

Cut until you reach clean wood, always making sure that you’re cutting at a forty-five degree angle above an outward-facing bud. 

Obviously, any canes showing signs of dieback also need to go. As do crossing branches that rub against each other. And remember what I mentioned in the intro: do not cut into roses if you’re due for a hard frost any time soon. 

As it happens, I have written a guide on how to prune roses in which I break everything down by category (and add some training tips as well). 

3. Wisteria

If you’re still feeling a bit shy with the pruners, get yourself a wisteria and go to town. There’s very little chance of messing it up, no matter how poorly you prune it. Once the buds of this vine swell in spring, the sap will start to flow towards them. So we ideally have to cut into it before that happens. 

The beauty of wisteria lies in its floral display, so the purpose of our pruning is to maximize that when the time comes. We will prune the leaf shoots until we reveal flower buds. 

This way, when the foliage unfurls, it will be at the same level as the blooms without obstructing them. Cutting them back to about three buds from the base should be enough. 

4. Apples and pear trees

Apple trees and pear trees rarely need hard pruning, unless we have identified dead branches in the previous growing season. Otherwise, we’ll just cut last year’s growth (the most vigorous shoots growing towards the ends of the main branches) by about a third. If the trees are mature and grew vigorously last year, we can even take half off the new growth. 

We’ll always trim just above a bud, preferably one facing outwards, away from the center of the plant. This will ensure that the new branch will grow outward. Maintaining a goblet-like shape on fruit trees is super important because it allows for better air flow and an even distribution of sunlight. 

As usual, we’ll also remove the dead, diseased, damaged or crossing branches, if any. 

A word of caution, since we’re talking about fruit trees. 

Now is NOT (I repeat, NOT!) the time to prune any other fruit trees. We don’t prune cherries, peaches, apricot or plum trees in winter. They’re very prone to a disease called silverleaf, which enters through the wounds we make at this time of year. 

5. Japanese anemones

I wouldn’t normally add herbaceous perennials to the list of plants we can prune in winter (that’s a spring job). But Japanese anemones (Anemone hupehensis), especially mature ones, are the exception. They are vigorous growers that can propagate quickly by sending underground rhizomes. 

That’s perfectly fine if your garden can accommodate them. In smaller gardens, however, they may end up taking too much space away from other perennials. So now, before they’ve started growing again, it’s the right time to assess their location and size. We can prune everything down to ground-level, then decide whether we want to dig up some and either relocate them or give them away.  

6. Hellebores 

Let’s stay in the realm of herbaceous perennials and talk a bit about hellebores. Unlike the Japanese anemones above, which will only bloom in late summer, hellebores are getting ready to bloom now. Here’s a photo I took of hellebores blooming in mid-February. In fact, that’s why their popular nickname is Lenten roses. 

Obviously, we will not cut down new growth. But if there is some lingering old foliage, now’s the perfect time to prune it. Trim the old foliage all the way down to the ground and make room for the new swelling buds and leaves to open up in all their February glory. 

7. Currants

Whether we’re talking about black currants, redcurrants or the elegantly marbled rosé ones, they’re all dormant at this time of year. Which makes this the optimal time to say “out with the old, in with the new.”

That’s because currants generally fruit best on canes that are two to three years old. So when we prune these shrubs in winter, our goal is to remove the oldest stems.

We don’t have to prune all of the old stems at the same time, since they won’t completely stop producing, just produce less. But removing some of them will redirect the plant’s energy into growing fruit and foliage on the younger canes.

Of course, we should also prune any other stems that are damaged or diseased. 

8. Fall-fruiting raspberries 

If your raspberries produce fruit in late summer and early fall, then you’re growing fall-bearing raspberries. 

I leave mine in place over the winter months to create habitat for wildlife and for the birds to get the last remaining berries over the winter. But it’s time to prune them now before the new growth starts poking out from the old crowns. We can cut everything down to a stump. The older the plants are, the faster and thicker they will grow for the new season. 

PS: Check that you’re not growing double-bearing raspberries (fruiting in early summer and also in the fall) before you cut everything down. 

9. Butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii) 

I think buddleia is to shrubs what wisteria is to vines – a very fast grower, a stunningly vigorous bloomer, but ultimately very easy to keep in check if you keep on top of it every year. 

I wrote an entire guide on how I pruned my butterfly bush in February, a couple of years ago. In a nutshell, we can either prune the butterfly bush more aggressively, all the way down to ground level or we can prune it to a taller framework. How tall that is remains up to you. Some gardeners prefer to cut it as high as waist-level.  

One of my buddleia shrubs grows alongside a fence, but on the outside of my yard, along an alleyway. So I prune it tall enough for the flowers to peek over the fence (so we can see them from the garden), but not as tall as to turn into sails when the wind is strong. 

10. Smoke bush (Cotinus coggygria)

The smoke bush is one of my favorite spring-blooming shrubs. It’s engulfed in frothy plumes of vanilla-colored blooms in April and May. (This is where it gets its nickname from.) As soon as the flowers open up, the scent takes over my backyard, and the pollinators start moving in. Hoverflies (not actually flies, by the way) love love love this shrub. 

We don’t need to prune Cotinus every year since it’s a generally well-behaved plant. But if we want to give it a different shape or growth pattern, now’s the time to do it. 

If we want longer vertical shoots that will sprout lush foliage, we can prune them lower to the ground. But beware that this kind of rejuvenation pruning will take a couple of years to come to fruition.