SHOULD WINTER DAMAGED EVERGREENS BE PRUNED NOW?

No doubt you have been noticing brown, dead patches in your evergreens this spring. This is the plant’s response to the extremely harsh winter. Your first impulse may be to prune out the damaged foliage and dead twigs. This might seem to make perfect sense, but wait!

While the dead needles and leaves will not green up and they will drop off later in the season, there are buds on the twigs that might produce new foliage and twigs. If pruned too early in spring these buds will be removed, greatly affecting the plants’ recovery and appearance.

Because of the very cold and windy winter, some of the buds may have been killed as well. However, we won’t know what parts of the plants have survived until mid-late May.

So, put down the pruners and be patient. Let’s see what will grow on your damaged evergreens and then remove just the dead portions of your damaged tree or shrub.

 Evergreen tree showing signs of winter burn.

Boxwood shrub leaves turned yellow above the snow line from winter burn.