This fast-growing woody shrubbeckons pollinators with its summer flowers.
However, an annual pruning can produce even more or larger flowers and keep stems in bounds insmall-space landscapes.
The leafless branches make it easy to see the shrubs form and shape.
Credit:Carson Downing
Flower buds for the upcoming summer are produced in spring.
This fact is always surprising to those growing rose of Sharon for the first time.
7 Tips for How to Prune Rose of Sharon
1.
Credit:Denny Schrock
Remove the 3 Ds
Clip away dead, diseased, and damaged branches any time of the year.
Heres a trick: scrape away a bit of the bark with your thumbnail.
The branch is alive if the tissue right under the bark is light green.
Also, dead branches often have a brittle, lightweight feel to them.
Allow pruning wounds to heal naturally.
Do not apply any tar, paint, or other substance to the wound sites.
Even with significant pruning, a rose of Sharon willbloom from midsummerthrough fall.
Control the spread by digging out volunteer seedlings anddeadheading flowersbefore they go to seed.
Count on flower buds to develop all along the remaining branches.
Removing too much growth can weaken the plant.
Remove no more than one-third of the plants overall size in a year.
Give it another trim in midsummer and late summer if needed.
This shrub does not require pruning to grow and flower well.
