Pruning and deadheading are vital gardening tasks that not only keep plants looking their best but also promote healthier growth and more abundant blooms or fruit, but timing and technique matter, especially with popular garden staples like hydrangeas, roses, and raspberries.

Here’s how to do it right, plus some advice on the best tools for the job.

The Best Secateurs for the Job

Investing in quality secateurs makes pruning easier and cleaner, reducing plant damage and strain on your hands.

Keeping your blades sharp is essential for top performance, we offer a wide selection of sharpening tools, just ask in store and we’ll be happy to help you find the right one.

Bypass

Bypass secateurs have two curved blades that pass by each other like scissors, allowing for neat cuts that don’t crush or tear the plant tissue. This helps reduce the risk of disease and encourages faster healing.

 

They work best for:

  • Cutting this year’s soft growth and give a clean and precise cut
  • Pruning live branches and stems
  • Ideal for cutting soft, green wood, including flowers, shrubs, and small branches (usually up to ¾ inch thick)
  • Deadheading flowers, cleanly snip off spent blooms to encourage more flowering
  • Shaping plants, trimming hedges, bushes, and ornamental plants to maintain shape and health
  • Harvesting herbs or vegetables, they are perfect for cleanly snipping herbs, soft vegetables (like beans or tomatoes), or fruit without crushing stems

Anvil

Anvil pruner blade closes onto a flat surface, these pruners are best for dead or hard wood, it cuts by pressure, so is less precise but is ideal for tough, woody stems.

They’re particularly effective for:

  • Removing dead branches from trees and shrubs
  • Clearing out dense brush, brambles, or heavily overgrown areas
  • Trimming large or long branches from live trees in preparation for a cleaner final cut using bypass tools

In these cases, the focus is on efficiently eliminating unwanted growth. This is where the durability and power of anvil tools truly come into play.

Roses

Different rose types call for slightly different techniques, but a few rules apply across the board:

Late February to early March is the best time to prune roses.

Use clean, sharp secateurs and cut just above an outward-facing bud to encourage outward growth and airflow.

Remove all dead, diseased, or crossing stems.

 

Deadheading Tip

Throughout the flowering season, remove spent blooms by cutting just above the first set of five healthy leaves to encourage repeat flowering. In late summer, you can stop deadheading to let hips form, which benefits birds and looks beautiful.

 

Burgon & Ball Flower & Fruit Snip bypass secateurs have finely pointed blades for precision stem selection which make them perfect for deadheading roses.

Raspberries

Raspberry pruning is all about identifying whether you have summer-bearing or autumn-bearing varieties.

Summer-fruiting raspberries: Fruit on last year’s canes. After fruiting, cut these fruited canes down to ground level, and tie in the new green canes for next year.

Autumn-fruiting raspberries: Fruit on this year’s canes. Cut all canes down to ground level in late winter (February) for a clean start.

Deadheading Tip

Raspberries don’t typically require deadheading, focus instead on cane management and general plant health.

 

The Burgon & Ball Anvil Secateurs are perfect for the fast removal of the dead woody stems of raspberry canes, they require less effort to operate when cutting through the woody stems and allow the new year’s green growth plenty of space and light to thrive.

Hydrangeas

The key to pruning hydrangeas is knowing what type you have:

 

Hydrangea macrophylla (mophead & lacecap)

These bloom on old wood. Prune after flowering in late summer by simply deadheading spent blooms and cutting back to the first pair of healthy buds.

Avoid cutting back hard in early spring, or you’ll lose the year’s flowers.

 

Hydrangea paniculata & arborescens

These bloom on new wood, so cut back hard in early spring to encourage strong stems and large flower heads.

 

Deadheading Tip

For all hydrangeas, remove spent blooms to tidy up the plant, especially after frost, but leave some heads over winter for frost-catching beauty and wildlife shelter.