6 Benefits of Dormant Pruning in Ohio

The plants, shrubs, and trees on your Northeast Ohio commercial property add a lot of benefits.

Maybe you manage a healthcare facility where patients and stressed-out physicians and nurses need the positive impact nature brings. If you maintain an office park, employees might enjoy taking breaks or holding meetings near greenery. If you run a retail center, you might welcome customers to stop and have snacks near the lovely plants in your outdoor courtyard. There’s also research that shows retail spending increases 9% to 12% on properties with nice landscaping that includes plants and shrubs. And if you tend to a college or educational facility, plants and shrubs can be a part of science lessons or a great backdrop to outdoor classrooms or student hangouts. For any commercial property, shrubs can lower your energy bills, reduce flooding and erosion, provide food and shelter for wildlife, and sequester carbon. This all additionally benefits the local environment.

As you can see, plants, shrubs, and small trees tend to be major living focal points of your commercial property. But to ensure they continue providing their many benefits of shade, oxygen, color, and visual interest as anchors of your Northeast Ohio commercial landscape, you need to take care of them.

Part of your plants’ regular care includes proper and regular pruning. While you might be trimming a broken or dead branch here or there throughout the year, there’s another level of pruning that can help your plants and trees thrive: dormant pruning for commercial properties.

Let’s look at the details of dormant pruning and talk about the advantages and benefits of the practice so you can better understand its purpose.

All About Dormant Pruning During Winter in Ohio

Now that we’ve intrigued you about the practice of dormant pruning, you might be wondering exactly what it is if you haven’t had this service before.

Dormant pruning in Ohio, as its name clearly states, is trimming your deciduous plants when they are dormant. The timing is ideal specifically after summer growth stops, the leaves have fallen, you’ve undergone multiple days of really cold temperatures, and before new growth begins to emerge in spring.

6 Benefits of Dormant Pruning for Commercial Properties

Obviously, we wouldn't be talking about dormant pruning unless it had some major advantages for your beloved plants and shrubs.

This is one of those landscaping services you can do during the winter months when there isn’t much else going on. And while you may not be thinking about spring during the frigid Ohio winter, doing this work during these cooler months can do quite a bit to make spring on your commercial property look better.

Here are the major benefits dormant pruning during winter in Ohio can bring you.

1. Makes Pruning Easier

When all of the leaves have fallen off your deciduous plants and shrubs, you’d be amazed how much easier it is to see what you’re doing while trimming.

This better visual makes broken, dead, and dying branches stick out, so they are simpler to prune. Also, when dormant pruning for commercial properties, you can see crossing branch structures and any other issues so you can prune appropriately to give your shrubs space and room to grow. This is also helpful if you need to prune to ensure more sunlight reaches the plant’s entire structure.

2. Boosts the Overall Health and Strength of Your Plants and Shrubs

You’ve spent a good chunk of your budget on installing and perfecting the look of your commercial landscape. The last thing you want to do is waste an opportunity to extend the life of your plants and shrubs.

Dormant pruning in Ohio causes less stress on the plant and allows for robus new growth the following spring.

3. Improves the Look and Curb Appeal of Your Commercial Landscape During the Winter

Winter tends to be the yuckier time of year on a Northeast Ohio landscape. From the slush to the mud and the snow and the sleet, there isn’t much to look at.

By doing a solid and necessary proper pruning during the colder months, you instantly improve the overall look of your winter landscape. It looks neater and more orderly, boosting your winter curb appeal, which is something every commercial property can benefit from.

4. Dormant Pruning Reduces the Likelihood of Disease and Pest Infestations

When you prune a shrub, you naturally make a small wound that must heal.

Dormant pruning during winter in Ohio means you’re trimming when insects and diseases are less likely to take advantage of those open wounds before they heal. Less sap also results from pruning cuts during dormancy. The whole experience is much less stressful on your plants, giving them the time and space they need to heal before the growing season returns.

5. Healthier Plants Make For Safer Commercial Properties

Eliminating dead or broken plant branches reduces the risks on your commercial property as a facility manager.

This is because when winds blow through or snow and ice piles up, those branches are more likely to fall and cause trip hazards or injure passers-by. Removing these branches not only eliminates the hazard but also strengthens your plants so they are less likely to suffer damage during storms.

6. Dormant Pruning Saves You Money

While you do have to pay for dormant pruning for commercial properties, the service ends up saving you money in the long run.

As we mentioned earlier, plants and shrubs provide great value on your property. If you have a robust shrub border, for instance, replacing that could cost you much more than maintaining your current shrubs. If you lost the tall shrubs, you’d likely only be able to replace them with much smaller versions and then have to wait years for them to grow and resume the size – and bigger benefits – of your current shrubs.

When Should I Dormant Prune My Commercial Plants and Shrubs?

You might be wondering about the exact timing involved in when to prune trees and shrubs in Ohio. Though the weather is the main guide on this timing, In Ohio, dormant pruning is usually ideal between the end of December or beginning of January and through February or even March.

But plant species matter quite a bit in pruning timing. Dormant pruning is specifically helpful for plants and shrubs that form their flower buds on new wood. This means the flowers will emerge on growth that will happen in the coming spring. Examples of plants and shrubs that fall into this pruning category include abelia, beautyberry, butterfly bush, summer- or fall-blooming clematis, smooth hydrangeas, panicle hydrangeas, potentilla, roses, rose of sharon, dogwoods, Japanese spirea, St. John's Wort, and summersweet.

For those plants and shrubs that bloom on old wood, or on the growth that has happened the previous year, you want to wait until late spring or early summer (after the flowers have bloomed and faded) to trim them. This is to ensure you don’t cut off the buds that will flower in the spring. Examples of the plants and shrubs that fall into this pruning category include azalea, beautybush, bridalwreath spirea, spring-blooming clematis, cotoneaster, deutzia, enkianthus, flowering almond, forsythia, mophead hydrangeas, lilacs, mock orange, mountain laurel, ninebark, oakleaf hydrangea, pieris, rhododendron, viburnum, Virginia sweetspire, weigela, wisteria, and witch hazel.

How Can I Add Dormant Pruning to My Commercial Maintenance Schedule?

Dormant pruning for commercial properties can be an easy add-on service to your existing commercial maintenance schedule.

Many times, your account manager from your landscape service company will recommend the service if he or she thinks your plants and shrubs could use the winter trimming. But you can also ask for it if you think it might be beneficial to your property.

The cost of dormant pruning typically depends on the size of your commercial facility and the amount of plant material your landscape professional needs to prune. Many times, your commercial landscape company can come up with a creative solution to fit your budget. Turfscape, for instance, has dormant pruned half of the plants and shrubs on a commercial property one year and the other half the next year to help its clients spend their budget dollars wisely.

Keep Dormant Pruning in Ohio on Your Winter Maintenance Radar

We know you have a lot of concerns when managing your commercial property throughout the year. So it’s easy to stop thinking about the outdoors once the leaves fade and the weather becomes cold.

But dormant pruning for commercial properties is one service that makes the most sense during this chilly time of year in Northeast Ohio. Doing the work in winter could save you time, money, and headaches during the following growing season. It could also make your property look that much nicer come springtime.

Having trouble understanding how dormant pruning can fit into your commercial maintenance schedule? Wondering how dormant pruning could benefit your commercial facility specifically? Let Turfscape help. Not only can dormant pruning make your plants and shrubs look neater during the messy winter, but it can prepare your property’s many visitors for a beautiful blooming spring.

Want to learn more about our winter commercial property services in Northeast Ohio, including dormant pruning? Get started today with a free quote. We’ll review your options together so you can feel confident and make a great choice.

Image Source: Hydrangea