Now is the time I would suggest pruning any of your shrubs except spring flowering shrubs. Pruning at this time of the year will allow the plant to recover very quickly and the stubs from pruning will show in a very short time.
I suggest pruning now and not shearing. Shearing is where you cut the outside edges off. Pruning is where you take off branches from down within the plant. This will cause the plant to renew itself from many different levels in the plant instead of just on the outer edge if you shear it.
Rule of thumb: New growth will take place where the pruning cut is. So stagger these pruning cuts throughout the plant so that you will have new growth coming from throughout the plant.
Peaches
If you have not finished pruning your peaches, continue to do this even though they may be in bloom. It won't injure the peach tree to prune after it has bloomed some. In fact, you can tell how many blooms you are leaving on if they are out.
As you prune, you need to check to see if there are any scale insects present. If there are, you need to spray for those. Go ahead and check your spray arsenal and make sure you have a good supply of fungicides so that you can begin spraying immediately after petal fall. This will help insure against brown rot that can appear on your peaches about the time that they get ripe.
For more information about peach tree spraying, give us a call at your county agent's office.
