Practical guide
Pruning by plant type
One question — when does it flower? — answers most pruning decisions. The rest is knowing where to place the cut and which plants will not forgive a hard one.
By Marion Ashcroft. Published 11 October 2026. Last reviewed 12 March 2027.
Most gardeners prune too much, at the wrong time, in the wrong place. The good news is that the underlying rules are few, and they follow from how each type of plant grows rather than from a list of species to memorise.
Why prune at all
There are four legitimate reasons. To remove wood that is dead, damaged or rubbing. To keep a plant within the space it has. To improve the structure of a young plant while the cuts are still small. And to encourage flowering by removing growth that has already flowered.
Tidiness is not on that list, and a great deal of unnecessary pruning is done in its name. A shrub with a natural open form that is sheared into a ball every spring has been made both less healthy and less interesting. If a plant needs constant cutting to fit its space, the plant is in the wrong place and no amount of pruning will fix that permanently.
The two flowering groups
Spring flowerers carry buds on wood made the previous season. Prostanthera, Philotheca, Correa, Hardenbergia, Pandorea pandorana, Clematis aristata, Rosa banksiae and Camellia sasanqua all belong here. Prune them within a few weeks of flowering finishing, so the plant has the whole growing season to make the wood that will flower next year.
Summer and autumn flowerers flower on the current season's growth. Alyogyne, Callistemon in most districts, Lagerstroemia, passionfruit and grapevine belong here. Prune them in late winter before growth starts. Anything you remove will be replaced before the flowering season.
Where a plant flowers for most of the year — Brachyscome, Scaevola, many Eremophila — the timing matters far less. Shear those back after the main flush, whenever that falls.
The nine steps
Work out when the plant flowers
This single question answers most pruning problems. Plants that flower in late winter and spring set their buds on growth made the previous season, so they are pruned immediately after flowering finishes. Plants that flower in summer and autumn flower on growth made in the current season, so they are pruned in late winter before growth starts.
Get this wrong and you do not damage the plant, you simply remove a year of flowers. That is why the mistake goes unnoticed and gets repeated. Rosa banksiae pruned in winter produces almost nothing the following spring.
Sharpen and clean the tools
A sharp blade makes a clean cut that closes quickly. A blunt one crushes and tears the stem, leaving a wound that stays open. Sharpen secateurs before a pruning session rather than partway through it.
Clean blades between plants with hot soapy water or by wiping them down, particularly when moving between plants where one is showing signs of trouble. Use bypass secateurs rather than anvil type for live wood; anvil blades crush.
Take out the dead, damaged and crossing wood first
Before shaping anything, remove the three D’s: dead, damaged and diseased wood, cut back to healthy tissue. Then remove branches that cross and rub, taking out the weaker of the pair.
On many plants this is all the pruning that is needed. Stand back and look before deciding to do more — a great deal of unnecessary cutting happens after the useful work is already done.
Cut in the right place
Cut just above a bud or a side shoot facing the direction you want new growth to go, angling the cut slightly away from the bud, about 5 mm above it. A cut left too far above a bud leaves a stub that dies back; a cut too close damages the bud.
When removing a whole branch, cut back to just outside the collar — the slightly swollen ring where the branch meets the trunk. Do not cut flush with the trunk, and do not leave a long stub. The collar contains the tissue that closes the wound.
Thin rather than shear
Shearing the outside of a shrub produces a dense shell over a hollow, twiggy interior with no air movement through it. In humid districts that is precisely the condition that causes foliage collapse from the inside out.
Thinning means taking whole stems out at their origin, opening the plant so light and air reach the middle. It takes longer and looks like less has been done. It is almost always the better operation.
Limit how much you remove
As a general rule, remove no more than about a third of a plant’s growth in a single season. Beyond that, most plants respond with a flush of weak, upright water shoots rather than useful growth.
Where a shrub genuinely needs hard renovation, stage it over two or three years rather than doing it all at once. Take a third each year, starting with the oldest stems at the base.
Know which plants will not shoot from bare wood
Most Australian natives with fine foliage — Grevillea, Eremophila, Correa, Philotheca, Leptospermum — do not reliably reshoot from wood with no leaves on it. Cut into bare stems and you get a bare stem permanently.
The rule for these is light and frequent: tip prune after flowering, taking only the current season’s growth, and never cut below the leafy zone. Saltbushes are the exception and can be cut back hard.
Prune deciduous trees while dormant
Deciduous trees are pruned in winter, once leaves have fallen and the structure is visible. Remove dead and crossing wood, select a single leader if you want a single trunk, and lift the canopy gradually over several seasons rather than in one operation.
Never top a tree by cutting main leaders back to stubs. The regrowth is weakly attached, more dangerous than the original limbs, and the wounds rarely close. A tree that is genuinely too large for its position needs replacing, not topping.
Deal with clumping plants differently
Grasses, mat-rushes, flax-lilies and sedges are not pruned; they are renewed. Shear the whole clump to between 150 and 250 mm in late winter before new growth starts, every second or third year. Divide clumps every three to four years by lifting them, cutting into sections and discarding the dead centre.
Kangaroo paw is treated slightly differently: remove spent flowering stems and old leaves at the base each autumn rather than shearing the whole plant.
Hedges
Hedges are the one place where shearing is the correct operation, but two details decide whether the hedge lasts. Cut with a slight taper, narrower at the top than at the bottom, so light reaches the lower foliage. A hedge cut with vertical or overhanging sides goes bare at the base within a few years, and on most species that base does not recover.
Trim little and often rather than hard and rarely. Two or three light cuts through the growing season keep the hedge dense and never expose bare wood. One hard annual cut takes the hedge back into old wood and leaves it looking damaged for months.
Once a year, in addition to shearing, reach inside and thin some interior growth out. This is the step that keeps a hedge alive at the centre rather than being a green shell over dead twigs.
Climbers
The flowering rule applies, with one addition: thin rather than shear, because a sheared climber becomes a heavy mass of dead twiggy growth against the wall, holding moisture there and contributing nothing. Take whole stems out at their origin and pull them free.
Whatever the species, cut the top of a climber back to at least 500 mm below the gutter line every year. Growth into a gutter blocks it and holds moisture against the fascia; growth onto roof tiles lifts them. Grapevine is the exception in method — it is cut hard in winter back to a permanent framework of arms, leaving short spurs.
Roses
Prune bush roses in July in warmer districts and August in cold ones, once the hardest frosts have passed. Remove dead and thin twiggy growth, take out one or two of the oldest stems at the base to encourage new ones, and shorten the remaining framework by about a third to an outward-facing bud.
Climbing roses that flower once in spring, such as Rosa banksiae, are pruned straight after flowering rather than in winter. Winter pruning removes the entire display, and it is the most common rose mistake made in Australian gardens.
What not to do
Do not seal pruning cuts. Wound dressings and paints trap moisture against the cut and slow closure. A clean cut in the right place closes on its own.
Do not prune in the heat of summer in arid districts. Cut surfaces and newly exposed bark scald in direct summer sun. Wait for autumn.
Do not prune in the tropical wet season. Cut surfaces stay wet, healing is slow, and the soft regrowth is immediately battered by squalls. Prune in the mid dry, when growth is slow and surfaces dry quickly.
Do not remove frost damage in mid-winter. The dead growth insulates live tissue below it. Wait until the last frosts have passed.
Wear gloves and eye protection. Keep both hands behind the blade. Do not use a ladder to prune above shoulder height; work from the ground or engage someone with the right equipment. Some plants have sap that may irritate skin — wear gloves and long sleeves. In an emergency call 000.