How should this be pruned?

Posts

• chicky Posts: 10,410

  February 2021

  @Scottdernie - I haven’t got one, but my Dad has, and I know he has got it back from being leggy, so I had a google and found this:
  
  https://www.wykehammatureplants.co.uk/blog/caring-photinias
  

  
  

  
  “Restorative pruning of a leggy specimen can be done by hard-pruning to just above a bud or node, cutting quite far down the leggy stems to encourage a bushier plant; this is most effective if done in April or May, depending on how cold the weather is, during the first flush of vigorous spring growth. Secondly, as I’ve said, they are hungry feeders, so an annual feed in April works wonders.”
  
  So you need to wait a bit, but eminently doable.

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• Cambridgerose12 Posts: 1,134

  February 2021

  Personally, I find that Photinia makes the most beautiful of all small evergreen trees when left to its own devices. It has silvery bark and beautiful leaves and flowers. You could try planting Geranium macrorrhizum 'Ingerwersen's Variety' as a groundcover--they flower at the same time.
  
  If you want it as a shrub, with leaves all over the outside, then the instructions above are spot on. It can make a lovely hedge, too. Once you have got more branching from below, then in subsequent years you would simply clip it as you would a hedge, to encourage the constant production of new twigs with the red new leaves.
  
  So it all depends on what you want the ultimate effect to be--either way though it does look in need of a good feed and mulch.

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• Scottdernie Posts: 2

  February 2021

  Thanks for the comments, every day is a learning day. We made the mistake of leaving it grow as we wanted it to hide the fence, I know now that maybe we should have continued to prune it. Going to have a go at restorative pruning when the time is right. 

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