Pruning Smoke Bush Rhs

That means they should be pruned in the late winter or very early spring while dormant.

Pruning smoke bush rhs. Choosing a leader to encourage growth as a tree now is not recommended. Pruning smoke trees annually will help make the plant more compact and strengthen the limbs. The smoke tree cotinus coggygria a deciduous bush is known for its distinctive purple leaves and the feathery pink and purple tufts that hang from spent flower blooms. We aim to enrich everyone s life through plants and make the uk a greener and more beautiful place.

Hi both we have had a smoke bush for over 20 years that grew into a smoke tree as can happen if pruned to make it that way we were suprised to see that you cut off all the branches of yours not leaving any to enable this tree of yours to regrow at least that is what it looks like in your photograph at least two side shoots on each branch surely should have been left this would stop it from. Join the rhs today and get 12 months for the price of 9. It grows ten to fifteen feet tall and wide in zones 5 to 8 and prefers full sun. The royal horticultural society is the uk s leading gardening charity.

Prune a smoke bush back to stands 12 to18 inches above ground for subsequent years. Pruning this shrub can be either for general shaping of its natural form or coppicing which is a more intensive and severe pruning approach. Other common names smoke tree royal purple. Smoke tree is an ornamental shrub to small tree that is grown for the bright purple or yellow leaves and the spring flowers that mature and puff out as if they were clouds of smoke.

Or to manage its size which was the case of my smokebush aka smoke tree rising above the roof. Genus cotinus are large deciduous shrubs or small trees with simple obovate leaves often colouring well in autumn and insignificant flowers borne in large plumy panicles in summer becoming colourful in fruit. How to prune a smoke tree. As you can see our pruning efforts had the opposite effect that we d planned.

Smoke trees are a summer flowering shrub that is produce flowers on new growth. One advantage of pruning at this time is that the shape and branching can easily be seen. Alternatively prune to thin it removing up to one third of the oldest misshapen and unproductive stems. Smoke trees tend to have a rangy splayed growth habit.

Instead of keeping the smoke tree nicely shaped and at a reasonable size we seem to have created an even more out of control growth situation.