5 reasons to do “Inside out Pruning”

Inside Out Pruning vs Flush Pruning

A neatly trimmed rectangular hedge with its inner branches visible, resembling the shape of a leafless tree but displaying proper inside-out pruning technique. The hedge is surrounded by lush green grass and trees in the background.Bringing out your hedge trimmer can be an easy, fast way to turn your plants from shabby to shapely. After a few effortless swings, the job is largely done. But we’ve all seen that stiff, unnatural, exterior of dense, tightly packed leaves with dead dry interior as a result. At Garden View, our maintenance teams use trimmers to efficiently remove plant material – but instead of solely relying on hedge trimmers, our team has perfected the strategy of utilizing what we’ve coined as, “The Inside-Out Method.”

Start by reaching inside the plant and, using a hand pruner, snip a small branch with leaves on it back to a lateral branch. Repeat the same process every 6 to 9 inches balanced throughout the shrub to create small openings in the dense exterior so that light can reach into the interior. New growth will start to sprout from inside the plant. Depending on the shrub and your needs, you may want to do this as often as every third pruning.

Here are our Top 5 benefits of Inside-Out pruning:

  1. Less work – Plants that have been inside-out pruned will require less maintenance. Flush-trimming forces the plant to devote energy to producing new growth predominantly on the exterior of the plant instead of throughout the whole plant. This makes more work for you!
  2. Healthier plants – Constant flush pruning cuts off growth before new healthy leaves and stems have a chance to mature and photosynthesize (produce plant energy). Plants need new growth to be healthy, produce chlorophyll, and to grow out of disease and other issues. Inside out pruning allows for new growth from inside the plant.
  3. More natural look -In most cases, constant flush pruning makes plants look unnatural while subjecting the plant to possible over pruning resulting in exposing the dry, brown and dead-looking interior. Inside out pruned plants will produce new growth on the interior of the plant and won’t appear as sheared.
  4. Less disease & insect problems – The dense exterior of sheared plants has minimal airflow at the center of the plant, making it a safe haven for pests, fungi, and disease.
  5. More Flowers – Constant flush pruning cuts off most flower buds that appear on new growth before you, beneficial insects and hummingbirds can enjoy the flowers.