How to Prune Jasmine? A Detailed Guide to the Latest Methods
Jasmine has a long flowering period, blooming continuously from early summer to late autumn. It is pure and elegant, with a rich fragrance, and is deeply loved by people. However, many people prune jasmine improperly, causing the canopy to become congested, with small and few flowers and weakened plants. Let us take a look below at the pruning methods for jasmine!
Jasmine Pruning Sayings
If jasmine is not pruned, weak branches and few flowers are very obvious; prune ruthlessly, and only then will flowering be steady.
Jasmine Pruning Methods
1. Growing-season pruning: Carry this out from after spring bud break until before overwintering, to encourage new branches to be neat and sturdy. Blind branches (non-flowering branches), leggy branches, weak branches, diseased and pest-infested branches, etc., should be cut off as soon as they are seen, to facilitate good ventilation and light penetration; after each flowering, promptly cut off the flower stalks and overly dense branches to encourage axillary buds to sprout, achieving the goal of more side branches, more buds, and more flowers.
2. Dormant-season pruning: Carry this out before spring bud break, to encourage the first flush of branches to grow neatly and sturdily and to adjust the canopy. Cut off diseased and pest-infested branches, dead branches, and thin weak branches; shorten the tips of one-year-old branches, keeping the base and 10—15 cm; remove all leaves from the plant. Generally, at the point where each jasmine leaf stalk joins the stem, there will certainly be a branching leaf bud (growth point). If it is not pruned, a new branch will grow from the growth point above the flowered branch (the side facing upward), while manual pruning greatly increases the probability of growing two branches, so the more branches there are, the more flower buds there will naturally be. If it is not pruned and allowed to grow freely, another disadvantage is that the stems and leaves grow too tall, and its new stems are relatively weak and leggy, so they are very prone to lodging.
3. Management after the flowering period: After autumn begins (after the third flush of flowers finishes), do not prune any more. After the flowers finish, it will gradually enter a state resembling dormancy and stop growing new leaves, but the leaves will not fall off; the whole plant simply stops growing! However, the benefit of keeping the leaves is that if there is an "autumn tiger" hot spell or a warm winter, the leaves can still carry out photosynthesis, and keeping the leaves also allows you to enjoy the foliage, rather than keeping an ugly set of leafless dead branches through the winter. Be sure to wait until early spring, when you observe the leaves just beginning to sprout, then first transplant and change the soil and carry out the first major pruning.
Jasmine Care During the Flowering Period
Jasmine greatly loves fertilizer. As long as care is proper, a potted jasmine can bloom three times a year. If fertilizer is insufficient and nutrients are inadequate, after blooming once it will no longer bloom. If management is on point, it can bloom continuously from the end of May to the beginning of November. The key is the mastery of pruning, sunlight, and fertilizer and water. Jasmine begins blooming one after another from early summer, and with proper management, three peak flowering periods can occur.
1. In early June, jasmine successively produces early flowers. The method of picking flowers is to pick off the flower together with the leafy young branch, encouraging new branches to grow again and the branches and leaves to become luxuriant. At this time, apply dilute fertilizer water twice a week and keep the potting soil moist.
2. From late June to early July is the first peak flowering period. At this time, fertilizer and water management needs to be strengthened, with light fertilizer applied frequently, fertilizing once every 2 days, using fully decomposed organic liquid fertilizer, with a fertilizer-to-water ratio of 1:4. Watering should be sufficient, generally once a day. Usually watering is best done in the morning, while fertilizing is better in the evening. Continuing this until late July, because of sufficient fertilizer and water, the flowers can be made larger and more numerous.
3. In early August, the second flush of flowers forms. At this time, fertilizing should be slightly more concentrated than before, generally with equal parts fertilizer and water. To encourage jasmine to bloom better, a superphosphate solution can also be sprayed on the leaves. By late August, gradually reduce fertilizing to once every 6-7 days, while watering still needs to be relatively frequent, maintaining once every 2 days.
4. From early September to early October, the third flush of flowers forms. At this time, fertilizing should be stopped, and the amount of watering should also be gradually reduced. Because the weather has gradually turned cooler, this will affect the formation of flower buds, so this batch of flowers is fewer in number. After mid-October, flowering ends, and it is only necessary to keep the potting soil slightly moist.