When & how to prune hebe?
28-01-2022
Pruning makes up an essential part of your plant's care. Many plants need to be pruned to stimulate new foliage's growth and keep them looking green and healthy. This goes for hebes as well. Not sure when and how to prune your hebe? In that case, Garden Beauty has curated a detailed pruning plan for your hebes below, including information such as when to prune them and how to do it exactly.
Pruning your hebe after blooming time
The pruning of hebes is done best right after they're done blooming. Most hebes bloom from summer to autumn, with flowers visible from June to September. Hebes can grow between 40cm to 1,5m in height, which means a small potted hebe can turn into a full-grown shrub in no time. This makes it even more important to prune your hebe correctly, especially since hebes are also evergreen.
The most important reason to prune your hebe as its flowers fade is to leave plenty of time to heal the wounds and grow new leaves before it starts getting cold outside. Hebes go into a hibernation state during the winter, which will cease most of the plant's growth. A hebe that gets pruned too late will not be able to optimally recover and thus be at greater risk of health problems.
Pruning and rejuvenating hebes
Now that we've gone over the best time to prune your hebe, it's time to get practical. How do you prune a hebe? Learn this new skill in just a few easy steps.
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For the pruning, use secateurs. First, make sure to cut off all of the dead flowers.
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You can start cutting back the foliage when you're done with step 1. A good rule of thumb when pruning your hebe is to cut back about a third of the length of the foliage branches.
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After that, have a good look between the inner branches of the hebe and cut all the branches that grow "against the flow". By this, we mean branches that touch other branches diagonally and could possibly damage them that way.
As mentioned before, hebes can grow to a considerable size. This is usually great but can cause "legginess". This is when the branches of a plant grow too long yet not thick enough, causing them to be unable to hold themselves up and thus fall down. When this happens, the best thing to do is give your hebe a thorough rejuvenation treatment by cutting them almost all the way back. Make sure to do this in spring, to give your hebe enough time to rest and heal.
Hebe aftercare
Do you want to know more about how to take care of hebes? Read our Aftercare hebe page to learn more.
