Alright, so my red tip photinias. Man, they were starting to look a real fright. You know how they’re supposed to have those bright red tips? Mine were just… well, not so red. And overgrown? Don’t even get me started. It was like a wild bush taking over that corner of the yard.
I kept putting it off, like you do with chores sometimes, thinking maybe they’d just sort themselves out. Spoiler: they don’t. It got to the point where they just looked really congested, all tangled up with each other, and hardly any of that nice new red growth was showing. I remember reading somewhere that if they’re not coloring up like they should, or if they just look like a woody, overgrown mess, then it’s time to get in there and do something.
So, I Decided to Tackle Them
It was spring, I think. That’s usually the time I try to get these bigger garden jobs done. I went and grabbed my shears – the trusty old pair, though they could probably use a good sharpening one of these days. My plan wasn’t anything too complicated: just make them look less like an abandoned hedge and more like something I actually meant to plant.
First things first, I went for all the obviously dead branches. You know, the dry, brittle ones. Easy pickings, those. Snip, snip, and they were gone. That already made a bit of a difference, helped to let some air into the plant. Then I had a good look for any branches that looked a bit sickly, or damaged, you know, not quite right. Those got the chop too. That’s sort of the basic maintenance I try to do.
Then came the harder part – dealing with the bits that were just plain overgrown. Some folks talk about “rejuvenation pruning” for when plants get like this. Sounds pretty fancy, doesn’t it? But for me, it just meant I had to get in there and really cut back a lot of the older, thicker stems that were just taking up space and not really doing much for the plant’s looks. I was a bit hesitant at first, I’ll admit. You don’t want to go too hard and kill the things. But then I figured, they look half-dead and messy anyway, what’s the worst that could happen?
- I started by cutting back some of the really long, leggy branches that were sticking out all over the place.
- Then I tried to thin out the center of each shrub a bit, where it was super dense and crowded.
- I did my best to make cuts just above a healthy-looking bud or a little side branch, hoping that’s where new growth would pop out from.
It was a bit of a workout, I tell ya. And by the time I was done, there was a massive pile of branches on the lawn. For a little while there, the photinias looked even worse, all hacked up and bare in places. My wife came out, took one look, and just gave me that look. You know the one.
But you know what? A few weeks later, I started seeing little new shoots appearing. And when that new growth really came in, it was actually red! Bright, vibrant red, just like it’s supposed to be. The whole shrub started to look much healthier, more open, and definitely not so congested anymore.
So, yeah, that’s my experience with pruning these red tips. If yours are looking a bit rough around the edges, or totally overgrown, don’t be too scared to get in there and give them a good prune. That maintenance pruning, like getting rid of dead and diseased stuff, I definitely try to do that every spring now. And if they get too wild and out of control, a bit of that “rejuvenation” – or as I like to call it, a “serious haircut” – really does seem to do the trick. They’re tougher plants than they sometimes look.
