How to Prune With Electric Shears
- 1). Prune with electric shears for large-scale jobs. They'll be cumbersome and destructive for your small pruning needs, like eliminating dead or dying branches or individually removing unwanted buds to allow superior ones to grow without competition.
- 2). Prune with electric shears in the early spring and late fall. These are the times when pruning is done to stimulate the plant, and using shears will give an indiscriminate, wholesale reduction in plant size. This, in turn, triggers new growth and benefits the entire plant.
- 3). Prune the plant down to a smaller shape in the fall after growth has stopped. In many cases, you'll prune all the way back to a few woody, stocky primary branches. This allows the plant to spend winter energy on root development without having to support much infrastructure during the tough winter months. Move slowly when pruning in this fashion. The electric shear blades need to cut rather than tear the branches to minimize damage to the plant.