Don’t Delay Pruning These 5 Flowering Trees in Spring – You Could Miss Out on Glorious Blooms

Flowering trees can undoubtedly put on dazzling summer performances, providing vivid color and attracting butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds into the garden. For an ultimate performance, gardeners need to prune at the right time. Here we reveal five flowering trees to prune in early spring, as you lose flowers if you do it any later.

Knowing when to prune trees means any in your yard remain healthy and put on the best show. That includes not trimming spring-flowering trees this month, but concentrating on summer-flowering ones that require trimming just as the buds break with clean, sharp pruning tools.

We reveal why you should add pruning crepe myrtle, chaste, desert willow, sourwood, and seven-son trees to your spring gardening checklist if you have them in your garden. There are also some trimming tips to help you prune confidently.

1. Crepe Myrtle

Crepe myrtle trees burst into bloom in early summer, with their bright clusters of flowers coming in shades of white, pink, red, and purple.

As these fast-growing flowering trees bloom in early summer, the window to prune crepe myrtle is closing. You can get away with trimming in early spring without ruining the summer show, but you want to do so before the end of March.

When growing crepe myrtle, pruning isn’t always necessary every year. However, when they do need trimming, it should be done during dormancy, before the buds break. As crepe myrtles bloom on new wood, the tree needs ample time to develop new stems to carry buds and blooms.

If you prune crepe myrtle too late, you’ll push back the flowering time and sacrifice the early blooms. When it comes to what to do with crepe myrtle in March, make sure to consider pruning.

You can get a Tuscarora Crape Myrtle Tree at Fast Growing Trees that stuns with bright coral-pink bloom in summer.

2. Chaste Tree

A chaste tree, also known as Vitex, is a shrub or small fragrant tree hardy in US hardiness zones 5-9. It produces 12-inch-long panicles of fragrant pink, lavender, or white flowers in summer, which attract butterflies.

Vitex flowers on new wood produced that season, and they want pruning in late winter or early spring. The ideal time to trim is just as the new growth starts to emerge for the season, and acting quickly ensures early flowering on the new stems produced. Delay and you miss out on beautiful, fragrant flowers.

Trimming a chaste tree can be as simple as removing dead, diseased, or damaged branches with sharp pruning tools and lightly shaping it as required.

It is worth noting that vitex is considered an invasive species in some parts of the southern and western US, as it self-seeds readily in warmer climates. Always check to see the status of the tree in your area before adding one to your yard.

If you have a chaste tree, cutting off spent flowers will prevent self-seeding.

3. Desert Willow

A desert willow, as the name suggests, is a drought-tolerant tree and one of the best trees for sandy soil or xeriscaping. It is a native plant to the southwestern US and Mexico that can be grown as a large shrub or small tree. However, despite the name, it is not a true willow but is in the same family as catalpa and campsis.

The small stature of a desert willow makes it an option as a flowering tree for smaller backyards, and the rewards it brings are spectacular: in the shape of orchid-like, trumpet-shaped flowers in bright shades of pink, purple, or white. These blooms often have patterned throats.

Prune a desert willow in late winter or early spring. They bloom on new wood, and trimming encourages stems that carry flowers that summer. It is not just you who will appreciate the dazzling blooms, as the flowers attract bees and butterflies. Prune too late, and you’ll sacrifice weeks' worth of potential flowers that you and the pollinators could enjoy.

A desert willow can self-seed, but you can get seedless varieties. One such example is this Sweet Bubba Seedless Desert Willow, available at Fast Growing Trees. This variety has bright magenta flowers and glossy leaves, plus it is seedless, so it won’t spread around the yard.

4. Sourwood Tree

A sourwood, often called a sorrel tree, is a small, low-maintenance tree with fragrant, white flowers in early summer.

These blooms are similar to lily-of-the-valley blooms, as they droop and seem to drip down the tree’s canopy to attract pollinators. Sourwood trees are beautiful year-round, with bright fall color and architectural appeal in winter.

One wonderful thing about a sourwood is its slow growth and ease of maintenance. They don’t need much pruning, and the window to trim runs through dormancy from late fall to early spring.

Don’t leave it too late, as you’ll not only miss out on flowers but also cause sap loss if you trim too far into spring. Excessive sap loss can leave the tree stressed and susceptible to pests and diseases.

5. Seven-Son Flower Tree

This small tree or large shrub quickly forms its flower buds once it starts growing in early spring, so you don’t want to be too slow to trim, as you’ll rob yourself of gorgeous blooms.

Even though the fragrant white flowers don’t show until late summer, the buds start forming early, so there is a real risk of cutting them off if pruned any time after very early in spring.

The good news is that you don’t need to do lots of pruning each year. Focus on removing dead, diseased, or damaged branches, along with weak, crossing, or inward-growing stems. This keeps the canopy healthy as air can circulate and light will penetrate.

Do this with a pair of clean, sharp pruning shears. A pair of quality pruning shears can last you for many years; indeed, these Felco F2 pruners, available at Amazon, are professional tools and all parts are replaceable, so they can last decades.

You can get a Proven Winners Temple of Bloom Seven-Son at Fast Growing Trees that will dazzle with white flowers in summer. These flowers make way for red bracts at the end of the season, for another dazzling show.

For more trimming guidance in early spring, this guide to plants to prune in March reveals what you should and shouldn’t cut this month. It includes trees, shrubs, grasses, and perennial plants, to help you avoid doing anything that may harm your plants early in the season.

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