Articles written by us for you, Happy Planting!

When should I trim my plants? How often should I trim my plants? Should I use clippers or a hedge trimmer? Will my plants bloom next year if I trim in fall? These are all common questions for most gardeners, even experienced ones. The good news is that most of the time the answer is subjective and depends on your goals and preferences for your garden. It's also a lot of fun to spend the day with your plants, it can be very relaxing.

Fall is a great time to plant shrubs and trees in most locations. Once your plantings have been installed in your landscape, its best to spread a little mulch around all new plantings. Mulch helps the root structure of the plant retain moisture during warm months and protects the plants roots from cold temperatures during winter.

If your lucky enough to live in a place where it rarely snows, gets very cold, or it never fells all that cold, you probably live in USDA planting zone 8 or 9. Much of the southern part of the country as well as the extreme west coast are all zone 8 or 9. Places like Phoenix, San Francisco, Houston, Orlando, Atlanta, and Portland, Oregon enjoy mild winters where planting shrubs and trees can happen most of the year.

We absolutely love living and growing our plants in USDA planting zone 7.  We are so lucky in that we can plant almost any time of the year, even in the dead of winter. Here in planting zone 7, our soil rarely freezes therefore we are lucky enough to have root growth throughout the fall and winter. Cool season root growth helps our new fall or winter plantings survive the following summer season.

If you live in planting zone 6, spring, summer, and fall are great times to consider planting your shrubs and trees. In springtime you will want to plant as the nightly temperatures are at least 35. In fall you will want to plant as soon as the weather cools off and plan on finishing up before Halloween. During summer months planting can happen anytime as long as daily watering can be completed. Lets discuss each season below.