Can you kill a plant from over-pruning?

When you shift into a new place, especially one with a large, mature landscape, the gardener in you will immediately start twitching if the plants on your lawn are overgrown. You may develop an irresistible urge to open the canopies and hard prune every plant you can reach — and some that belong to your neighbours. But, over Tree pruning in plants can be as bad, or even worse, than not pruning them at all. Can You Kill a Plant From Over Pruning? Although over shrubs and pruned trees don't mainly die if some part of the canopy remains, the damage from over-pruning can be extensive. Over pruning reduces the foliage available for making food for the rest of the plant and allows pests and diseases to access the tree if cuts are made incorrectly. Plants may grow excessively in response to so much canopy loss to increase food production and protect the plant's bark from sunscald. Over time, continued over-pruning may lead to too weak branches to tolerate wind or ice loads, or the plant may exhaust itself to replenish its canopy.

The plant may become extremely weak, allow a variety of insects and pathogens to invade. So, although pruning may not kill the plant directly, over shrubs and pruned trees can die as a long term result of the associated stress.

How to Repair Over Pruning

Unfortunately, you cannot fix the damage from over-pruning, but you can help your tree overcome the many difficult days ahead. Provide proper fertilization and water to help the plant along. Its diminished capacity for photosynthesis means that it is more important than ever that your plant has all the building blocks it requires readily available for food production. Wound dressing is rarely recommended, with only a few exceptions, like when oak wilt disease is expected in the area. In this case, the wound dressing can prevent the penetration of vectoring beetles into healing tissues. Otherwise, leave wounds open. It is now believed that dressing wounds slow the natural healing process in bushes and trees.

Time is the only natural cure for over-pruning, so do so carefully when you decide to prune. Remove no more than 1/3 of the canopy at a time, and resist the urge to top the trees. Topping is a practice that is very bad for plants and may lead to brittle canopies.

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