This week we direct our secateurs (see sidebar) at garden shrubs that flower in summer on the current year’s wood. This group includes the summer-blooming spireas, both the Japanese spirea (Spireas japonica) and the numerous hybrids, including the pink-flowering “Anthony Waterer” and the golden-leaved forms such as “Goldflame.” Also included in this group is the smooth hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens), often called the snowball hydrangea, and the panicle hydrangea (H. paniculata), represented by the popular cultivars “Grandiflora” (the so-called Pee-Gee hydrangea) and “Tardiva.”

The approach is to prune early in spring, just before bud break, so that there is a maximum amount of time for the flowering wood to develop before the long days of early summer stimulate flower bud formation.

The sub-shrubby varieties that do not develop a permanent scaffold branching system, such as smooth hydrangeas and spireas, can be cut back to within a few inches of ground level. This can be done quickly and efficiently with hedge shears. Keep in mind that the ultimate height of the flowers will depend on how low you shear the plant.

Optimum flowering on species with a permanent scaffold branching system, such as the panicle hydrangeas, is accomplished by pruning to develop an open framework of permanent woody branches and then cutting back the lateral branches to within two or three pairs of buds of this framework each spring. The new growth on these lateral branches will bear the summer’s blooms.

Selecting the right pruning tool

The English call them “secateurs.” We call them hand pruners or hand shears. Without a doubt, they are the most important of pruning tools, used whenever the stem to be cut is less than about 1/2-inch in diameter.

Hand pruners fall into one of two categories: anvil and bypass. In the anvil style, a sharp blade strikes a flat metal surface (the “anvil”) as it cuts through the stem. A bypass pruner works like a pair of scissors with two sharpened blades sliding past each other.

When it comes to purchasing hand pruners, you get what you pay for. Anvil pruners are typically less expensive than bypass models and the price difference is reflected in the job done. The anvil pruner will often crush the stem, slowing down the healing process and thus increasing the potential for disease. That wide anvil surface also makes it difficult to get the pruner close to the base of the stem you want to remove.

A good bypass pruner will have replaceable blades (a necessity for those who ask their pruners to do double duty as wire cutters) and an adjustable tension screw to tighten the blades as they loosen during use.

For cutting branches between 1/2-inch and 2 inches in diameter, you need lopping shears. Think of “loppers” as hand shears with long handles. Again, loppers come in both anvil and bypass styles. I recommend the bypass style.

For even larger branches, I always carry a small folding pruning saw in my back pocket. I am fond of the newer “turbo” or “frictionless” blades, sometimes sold as Japanese pruning saws. They cut on both the push and pull stroke, cutting the pruning time in half.