If you want the short version of when to prune in Vancouver, here it is. Most pruning belongs in late winter, roughly February into March, before growth starts. The rest belongs in the few weeks straight after a shrub has finished flowering. The exceptions are where the money goes. Plums and cherries do better with a cut in dry summer weather, and a conifer cut back into bare wood does not fill in again.

We are a garden consultancy on the west side, and we work on plants rather than patios, walls and drainage. There is no certificate on the wall here, and Darrell is not bidding on your build work either, so nothing on this page is written to sell you a job. What follows is the timing we would give you standing in the garden: the cuts that grow out, the cuts that do not, the plants that break the rule, and a rough order for the year.

Picture a dry Saturday in early September. You are standing on the side path with the hedge trimmer already plugged in, looking at a cedar hedge that has pushed a foot past the fence line, and you set the trimmer down again because you are not certain this is the right week to be doing it. The hesitation is reasonable. It is also how a hedge goes another year without being touched.

Most pruning mistakes grow out. Cut a shrub in the wrong month and you lose a season of flowers, then it carries on regardless. The trouble is the handful of plants where it does not work that way. A hedge that is one foot too wide is a trim. The same hedge three years later is over the path, over the fence and shading the bed underneath it, and the only cut that brings it back inside its space is a cut into wood that will never green up again.

Cedar, arborvitae, juniper, spruce and pine share a limitation that most broadleaf shrubs do not have. Cut them back past the green growth into the bare brown wood inside, and nothing grows from the stub.

Washington State University Extension puts it plainly in its evergreen pruning sheet: arborvitae and cedar do not re-sprout from bare wood. The Royal Horticultural Society says the same about the group in general, that most conifers will not regrow from brown dead wood if you prune into it. Virginia Tech gives the practical version, which is to avoid pruning into the inactive centre of a conifer because new branches will not form to cover the stubs.

That matters here, because cedar hedging is everywhere on this side of town. So trim a conifer hedge lightly and often, and stay in the green. Once it has gone past the line you want it to hold, the honest answer is usually that it cannot be brought back, and the decision is whether to live with the size it is or replace the run.

Yew is the one conifer in common use here that will come back from old wood. The same Washington State University sheet says a yew can be rejuvenated by cutting it to within six to twelve inches of the ground in early spring, and the RHS lists yew as the notable exception to the no regrowth rule. So an old yew hedge that has swallowed a path in Shaughnessy or Kerrisdale is usually repairable. The cedar hedge next door is not.

Forsythia, lilac, quince, weigela, deutzia, mock orange and most of the early spireas set next spring flower buds during the summer before, on wood that is already standing there. Colorado State University Extension describes it as blooming on one year old wood, with buds developing from midsummer through fall. Penn State Extension gives the instruction that follows, which is to prune spring blooming shrubs soon after they finish flowering.

The window is short, and it moves with the plant rather than with the calendar. When the flowers go over, you have a few weeks. Prune that same shrub in November because the garden is looking untidy and you are cutting off the flowers you spent all winter waiting for.

Summer flowering shrubs work the other way round. They flower on growth made in the current season, so they are cut in late winter or early spring, before growth starts.

Hydrangeas cause more confusion here than anything else, because two quite different plants get bought under one name.

Bigleaf hydrangeas, the mopheads and lacecaps with round heads and glossy leaves, flower on old wood. Clemson University says the buds are set on old wood in late summer and fall, so pruning belongs immediately after flowering. The University of Minnesota gives the same rule with a deadline attached, which is to prune them once they finish blooming and before August.

Panicle and smooth hydrangeas, which include the cone shaped Limelight types and the Annabelle types, flower on wood grown in the current season. Clemson puts those in late winter or early spring while the plants are dormant, and Colorado State lists them among the summer flowering shrubs pruned in early spring before growth starts.

If you are not sure which one is in your bed, the flowering month is the safest tell. One that opens in June is very likely on the old wood schedule.

The West Side has a great many Prunus in it, ornamental cherries along the street, plums in back gardens, laurels used as hedging. This is the group where the usual advice about tidying in the dormant season is the wrong advice.

The RHS is direct about it: avoid pruning plums in winter, as it increases the risk of infection by silver leaf disease to which plums and other Prunus species are prone. Its recommended timing is spring for young trees and midsummer for established ones. Washington State University arrives at the same place from the disease side, noting that trees are least susceptible to infection from summer through fall in dry weather.

Our wet autumn and winter is exactly the stretch when people feel like tidying. It is also exactly the stretch to leave the plum alone.

Late August and September tempt everyone with the shears, while the garden looks shaggy and the weather holds. It is a weak month for three separate reasons.

Virginia Tech gives the first. Avoid pruning evergreen trees in late summer and early fall, because pruning then can stimulate new growth that may not harden off before winter and may be damaged by the cold. The University of Minnesota puts the same line at the end of August for shrubs. Our winters are gentler than the ones those guides were written for, so treat that reason as real but smaller here.

The second holds fully. Colorado State points out that pruning in fall and winter removes flowering wood with next year buds already on it, so an autumn tidy on a spring flowering shrub is a decision to skip its flowers.

The third is the Prunus problem above. Late summer into autumn is when the wet arrives, and that is when fresh cuts on cherries and plums are least welcome.

Take your phone around the garden and photograph every shrub you are unsure about. Under each photo write the month it flowered this year. That one note answers most of the timing question on its own, because a shrub that flowered in April gets pruned as the flowers finish, and a shrub that flowered in August gets cut in late winter instead.

Then do one thing at the hedge. Part the foliage with your hand and see how deep the green goes before it turns to bare brown stems, then look at how far past its line the hedge has grown. If the overgrowth is deeper than the green, no amount of good timing will trim it back, and what you are looking at is a decision rather than a job.

We work on plants, on the West Side, in Kitsilano, Point Grey, Dunbar, Kerrisdale and Shaughnessy. We are not the people to call about a patio or a retaining wall, and we will say so on the phone rather than take the job, but what that narrowness buys you is somebody whose whole attention is on the things that are growing. A guide also has one limit that no care gets around, which is that it cannot see your garden. Timing is only half of a pruning decision, and the other half is the order things get done in.

Late winter, around February and March, for shaping, with touch ups after the spring flush. The important part is not the month. It is staying inside the green growth, because cedar does not re-sprout from bare wood.

Only as far as the green goes. Cut past that into the brown wood inside and that face of the hedge stays bare, so a hedge already well past its line is usually a replacement conversation rather than a pruning one.

It depends on the type. Bigleaf mopheads and lacecaps are pruned right after they flower and before the end of August. Panicle and smooth types, such as the cone shaped and Annabelle kinds, are pruned in late winter or early spring.

It is the most tempting month and one of the weakest. Autumn cuts remove flower buds already set for next spring, and they leave fresh wounds on cherries and plums during the wet.

Spring for a young tree and midsummer for an established one, in dry weather, which is the reverse of the dormant season habit. The reason is silver leaf, which enters through fresh cuts.

DH Landscape Solution runs one paid visit called the [Garden Assessment](https://www.dhlandscapesolution.com/garden-assessment). Darrell walks the garden with you for up to ninety minutes, or reviews your photographs on a call of about an hour, and a written plan follows within two to seven business days. It sets out what he found, what to do and in what order, and the pruning and feeding windows that matter for the plants you have. If replanting makes sense, it comes with a planting drawing in his own hand and a plant list by name and quantity. Most people read it once at the kitchen table, and then again with somebody else's quote in the other hand.

It is 450 dollars flat plus tax, paid when you book. The fee is the same whether you hire us afterwards or not, and the plan belongs to you, so you can take it to any contractor in the city. The plant list carries no prices on it, because he is not pricing the list. A plan written now is also in your hands before the late winter window, which is when most of the work described on this page actually happens.

[Book the assessment on our garden assessment page](https://www.dhlandscapesolution.com/garden-assessment), pick a time and pay online, and the written plan reaches you within two to seven business days.

One last thing. If the only note you take from this page is to check how deep the green goes on your hedge before anybody starts cutting, that alone is worth the ten minutes you just spent here.