Pruning
Australian Plants
All Australian plants should be
pruned, no matter what species and varieties they are.
Regular pruning, little and often, will extend the vigour and life
of a plant, and encourage dense compact growth and lush flowering.
If you are just starting out on your garden maintenance learning
curve, we suggest that you first of all practise on Callistemons
(bottlebrushes), which are not only forgiving but almost
indestructible. Follow these photographic steps and you
cannot go wrong.
Pruning
Callistemons couldn’t be more simple. These accompanying photographs
demonstrate it clearly.
Begin pruning
as soon as the flowers are spent, or you can do it on a daily basis,
just trimming off the flowers one by one as they finish. Either way,
the aim is to stimulate the production of a bunchy set of new stems
from just below the cut.
In some cases,
because new growth extends very rapidly above the flowers even before
they are spent, you will have to sacrifice some growth. But don’t
worry about that, as several new shoots will replace the one you
have cut.
Each new stem
will rapidly grow outwards, and next season bear its own flower
head. That is then pruned once the flower is finished, and away
the process goes again.
It is easy
to see how a bottlebrush can be maintained and stimulated to produce
dense foliage and a mass of flowers to delight the eye and entice
honeyeaters all day long. The bonus of such simple management is
that spring blooming, once trimmed off, will encourage the setting
of more new buds which then flower in autumn.
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