Most trees have four to seven major anchoring roots that flare out horizontally from the trunk, with only a couple of deep tap roots. Cutting even one of those roots can remove up to 25% of the root system of the tree and seriously compromise its stability. Only a professional arborist should cut those large roots when absolutely necessary.

If you have a small tree whose major anchoring roots look like they might cause problems later, you might be able to cut those yourself.

Here’s how to know whether you should cut a tree root:

• Only cut tree roots that are smaller than 2 inches in diameter or you will compromise a tree’s health and stability.
  
• Cut no closer to the tree than three times the diameter of its trunk. For example, if the trunk is 6 inches in diameter, cut roots off at least 18 inches away.
  

If in doubt, get a better look at the root to be sure you need to cut it: Carefully scrape the soil away or wash it out with a high-pressure stream of water. And always make a clean cut with a pruning saw, loppers or pruners to prevent disease or pest infestations.

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I may have said this before (or several times), but I really love a good battery-powered garden tool. I no longer regret an impulse purchase of 300 spring bulbs — I can plant them in about an hour with my trusty bulb auger drill. Spring garden cleanup doesn’t scare me — my beloved hand-held shears and I knock it out in no time.

Make garden chores easier with battery tools

Lithium batteries are more powerful than ever, and not only are they used in large garden tools like lawnmowers, but also in small hand tools. With a power upgrade from a manual tool, you can zip through all kinds of garden work that is otherwise tedious and slow. Battery-powered versions of hand-held tools are godsends for folks with arthritis or limited hand strength, and they can prevent injury during tasks that cause wear on your hands from gripping and repetitive motion.

Looking for a way to make your own garden tasks less work? Try these five helpful small battery-powered tools.

A note of caution when using battery-powered garden tools!

Always read the instructions and handle cutting tools carefully. A power tool doesn’t know the difference between your finger and a branch!

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Battery-powered hand-held trimmer

I use this hand-held trimmer for everything that needs a trim, but it is especially good for shearing plants with lots of little stems, like coreopsis (Coreopsis spp. and hybrids) or boxwood (Buxus sempervirens). This WORX® Shrubber Trimmer is lightweight and maneuverable with one hand, yet it still has plenty of power to cut through stems up to ½ inch in diameter. Mine has two interchangeable blades: The grass shear works great to deadhead perennials, such as garden phlox (Phlox paniculata), above, or dianthus (Dianthus spp.and hybrids). I use it with an upward motion like haircutting clippers. The double-sided hedge shear allows me to cut both directions in a swift, fluid motion to carve a smooth, even shape, either flat or rounded, for an evergreen hedge or spirea (Spiraea spp. and hybrids).

What a hand-held trimmer is best for

• Perennial cleanup
• Deadheading
• Pruning shrubs and hedges
• Trimming grass
• Shaping a topiary
  

More Tools We Recommend:
Stihl HSA 26 Garden Trimmer
Craftsman V20 Hand-Held Trimmer
Milwaukee Hedge Trimmer

Battery-powered auger

If you plant a lot of spring-flowering bulbs, you know the value of a bulb auger operated by a cordless drill. You can carve out a planting hole in seconds, even in hard ground. I use mine more often for planting annuals and small perennials than for bulbs. Got a gallon-size shrub to plant? No problem — just auger several holes together. I like that the excavated soil is broken up by the auger, which makes refilling with soil around the bulb or transplant fast and easy.

Be careful when using an auger with a cordless drill: Grip the tool firmly and brace the handle against your knee to prevent it from torquing your wrist if it hits a rock or hard patch of soil. Look for drill models with an auxiliary handle for better stability like this Craftsman® V20 Auger Drill.

What a battery-powered auger is best for

• Planting bulbs
• Planting annuals and perennials
• Breaking up potting mix in containers
  

More Tools We Recommend:
Power Planter 3x30" Bulb Auger (fits with any cordless drill)
Rotoshovel
SuperHandy Earth Auger

Battery-powered hand pruners

After pruning a large shrub or row of grapevines, your hands might be a bit sore. That’s when you’ll wish for battery-powered hand pruners. Just pull the trigger and the blades slice through branches up to 1¼ inches in diameter. It’s great for reaching into tight spots where you don’t have the space to open the handles of a manual pruners or the leverage to cut a large branch.

Though it takes a bit to get a feel for the timing of the trigger to the cutting action, once you develop a rhythm, you’ll be able to tackle a big job in no time. If you have hand-strength issues, this can be a game changer.

What battery-powered hand pruners are best for

• Repetitive pruning projects, such as a vineyard or rose garden
• When branches are large in diameter and you need extra strength to cut

More Tools We Recommend:
CRAFTSMAN 20V MAX Cordless Electric Pruner
DeWalt 20V Max Cordless Pruning Shears
Milwaukee Cordless Pruning Shears
WORX NITRO Pruning Shears

Mini battery-powered chainsaw

It may look cute, but make no mistake: A mini chainsaw like the Stihl GTA 26 Mini Chainsaw model above will cut a 6-inch diameter branch or log with ease so you should handle it carefully. It is lighter and more manageable than a regular chainsaw. I like that it will fit into tight spaces between branches where it’s hard to even maneuver a hand saw. While you might be tempted to use one of these small chainsaws with one hand, always follow the instructions and place a free hand on the gripping surface above the trigger handle for extra control and to make sure it doesn’t kick back.

What mini chainsaw is best for

• Sawing branches too thick to cut with pruners or loppers
• Awkward spots where a large chainsaw won’t fit

More Tools We Recommend:
WORX 20V 5" Mini Chainsaw
NaTiddy 6" Cordless Chainsaw
Milwaukee 18V Cordless Pruning Saw
Wild Badger Power 40V 16" Cordless Chainsaw

Battery-powered lawn sprayer

Have you ever worn yourself out from manually pumping a sprayer to pressurize it? You’ll love a battery-powered version like the WORX® 2-Gal. Lawn Sprayer above. The sprayer is pressurized with the simple push of a button, and the compressor automatically kicks on when the pressure gets low so you always have a steady spray. No pumping necessary. A quality lithium battery sprayer is a good investment for multiple purposes — just be sure to clean the sprayer thoroughly between uses. Or keep a separate, labeled sprayer for herbicides so you don’t accidentally damage plants with any residues left in the tank.

What lawn sprayer is best for

Any spraying job:

• Cleaners
• Sanitizers
• Antitranspirants
• Water-based sealants
• Pesticides for weeds, insects or fungal diseases

More Tools We Recommend:
Scott's 2-gal Battery Pump Sprayer
HIFAY 2L Rechargeable Sprayer
Haushof 5L Battery-powered Sprayer

Root-pruning = healthier trees

Container-grown trees are a great way to get height in spots where you can’t plant in the ground and add drama and permanence where you might normally just grow annuals. To grow a tree in a pot, use a container at least 20 inches in diameter and height. The larger the pot, the better your tree will grow, plus it will be heavier and less likely to blow over. Although you can plant almost any tree in a container, you’ll have the best results with varieties that are naturally small. And to subdue a tree's size and keep it growing healthy for years, you should root-prune.

How often should you root-prune container-grown trees?

To stimulate smaller feeder roots to grow and control the plant’s size, the tree should be root-pruned every two to three years. This is important because over time, roots will circle inside the pot and may girdle the trunk, which constricts the flow of water and nutrients to the canopy and could kill the tree. Root-pruning will remove circling roots and encourage a healthier root system.

Best time to root-prune trees

This technique is best to do in late winter or early spring while the tree or shrub is dormant. Avoid root-pruning in the summer as it can be stressful for the plant to try to grow new roots when they are needed for water uptake. When the plant is dormant, it has a better head start on growing roots after pruning them off.

To learn how to root-prune, watch the video above, or keep scrolling to see the process of repotting a container-grown arborvitae.

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How-to steps for root-pruning container-grown trees

Step 1: Slice the bottom roots

It is best to root-prune container trees while the plant is dormant in late winter or early spring every two to three years. Start by using a soil knife to loosen the tree in its pot, then tip it on its side to slide the root ball out of the container. With a pruning saw or sharp knife, slice about 2 inches off the bottom of the root ball to get rid of circling roots massed at the bottom of the pot.

Step 2: Shear the sides

Along the sidewalls of the pot, roots may also be circling and tangling together. Shear 1 to 2 inches of these roots all the way around the root ball, depending on the size of the tree. The larger the plant, the more roots you can shave off. If you notice thicker roots wrapping around the trunk, cut them off close to the trunk with a hand pruner or lopper to prevent girdling.

Step 3: Untangle the roots

After trimming the roots, tease out tangled roots with your fingers or a hand rake so they can grow unimpeded into the fresh potting mix once repotted. This also loosens the root ball and encourages the plant to grow more feeder roots for absorbing water quickly in pots with limited moisture-holding capacity.

Step 4: Replant the tree

You can repot the tree back into the same pot, or upgrade to one no more than 2 inches in diameter larger if you want the tree to increase in size. Don’t go too much larger than the previous container — excess potting mix in a pot that is very large may stay too wet and rot the roots before they can get established. To repot, set the tree in straight on top of a layer of fresh potting mix, making sure it is planted no deeper than it was in the previous container. Tamp new potting mix in around the sides of the root ball and water in thoroughly.
Many trees can be grown in pots for up to 20 years or more. Keeping the roots healthy will ensure your container tree lives a long, full life.

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3 Ways to deadhead petunias in summer

Petunias are great for providing summer-long color in the garden, but to keep them blooming their best, be sure to deadhead them. This entails removing spent flowers as they fade. There are a several ways to do this:

1. Remove dead flowers

The simplest method is to just pluck faded blossoms off as they wilt and dry. They pull off easily, and the plant looks cleaner. However, this method leaves the base of the flower, which will continue to form seed. Petunias that are producing seed won't bloom as much, so it may be better to try another method.

2. Snip off petunia flower and stem

A better way to deadhead petunias is to snip off the flower and its stem as close to the branch as possible. You can do this by pinching the stem between your thumb and forefinger. A thumb pruner is a handy tool for this job that slips on your thumb, creating a sharper "thumbnail" to snip the stems. Another great tool to use is a ring pruner (in the photo above), which has a small blade for fine detail work like this.

3. Prune petunias to encourage branching

In midsummer, your petunias may be getting a bit leggy, with a lot of spent blooms that are time-consuming to snip individually. It's a great time to use a pruner or shears and cut back the plant by a third to half. This causes the plant to grow more branches with more flowers for the rest of the season.

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Deadhead dianthus for a tidier plant

With delightful, clove-scented flowers and compact mounds of blue-green foliage, dianthus (Dianthus spp. and hybrids) are a front-of-the-border star in a sunny garden. Dianthus, commonly called pinks, bloom from late spring into summer but will sporadically rebloom if spent flowers are snipped off regularly. Deadheading dianthus also makes the plant tidier and will prevent it from reseeding.

Helpful Deadheading Tools:
WORX Cordless Shrubber Trimmer
Small Hedge Shears
Garden Snips

How to deadhead dianthus

After dianthus blooms fade, use scissors or small snips to cut back the elongated flower stems. Cut the stem back into the mound of foliage where new branches are emerging, so you won't be left with unsightly stubs sticking out. But if you have a lot of dianthus to deadhead and aren't worried if stubs show, you can use a small hedge shear like you see above to make the work go faster.

Deadheading dianthus the easy way!

To make deadheading even easier and more efficient, use a battery-powered hand-held shears with the grass shear blade, like the one used in the video above, to deadhead dianthus plants with a couple quick passes. Rake your hand through the foliage when you are done to brush the debris out and toss it in the compost bin.

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Tips to deadhead geranium flowers

Geraniums are a favorite plant for containers and borders. To keep annual geraniums tidy all summer, it's a good idea to deadhead the spent flowers. And the best part is that by doing this you'll encourage more blooms! In the short video above, Jennifer shows you how to deadhead geraniums growing in containers at our test garden.

Common types of geraniums

There are many kinds of annual geraniums (Pelargonium spp. and hybrids), but the most common are zonal, seed and ivy.

• Zonal geraniums are larger with 4- to 6-inch flower clusters on large, upright plants. Zonal geraniums are propagated by cuttings and usually sold individually.

• Seed geraniums are started from seed and often sold in multi-packs. They are smaller, rounded plants, with more numerous flowers than a zonal. These flowers shatter easily, meaning spent petals will fall off and don't need to be deadheaded. However, you may still want to snap off the leftover flower stems.

• Ivy geraniums are trailing plants with waxy, ivy-shaped leaves, unlike the others with rounded leaves.

How to deadhead geraniums

It is easy to deadhead any annual geranium — zonal, ivy or seed-grown can all be done the same way.

• When the geranium blooms are done and dried, simply follow the stem from the flower head to where the stem meets the leafy branch.
• You'll feel a knobby node at the base of the flower stem. Using your thumb and forefinger, grasp the node and snap the stem sideways like you see in the photo above. The stem should break off cleanly right at the node.
• You can also snip them off with a scissors or pruners, but usually they break off easier by hand.

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Find the best tool for deadheading flowers in the garden

If you've spent even 15 minutes deadheading, or removing spent flowers, in an afternoon, you know that it can be repetitive and tedious work. Matching the right sized tool to the job can make a huge difference and prevent frustration (and hack jobs!). Here are a few of our favorite tools for deadheading and the situations in which to use them.

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Garden Snips

Snips are great for detail work in tight spots or cutting a handful of slender stems all at once.

When to use garden snips

Use the narrow blades of a pair of snips to get in between foliage and stems to remove a spent bloom from among several fresh ones, as with annual salvia (Salvia farinacea) or the black eyed Susan (Rudbeckia fulgida) above. The center blooms fade first so if you cut that out of the center, the fresher side stems will take off more quickly and look better without the faded one nearby.

Snips we recommend

Fiskars Micro-Tip Pruning Snips
Mueller UltraPrecise Garden Snip
Fiskars Garden Herb Snip

Garden Scissors or Shears

Scissors aren't just for your kitchen or craft room. Be sure to have a pair handy in the garden and you'll find all kinds of ways to use them.

When to use garden shears

Garden scissors are a good bet when snips are too small for the job. They can still fit in tight spots but have longer blades and a bit more heft. They're perfect for cutting a handful of slender stems all at once like when pulmonaria (Pulmonaria spp. and hybrids) or yarrow (Achillea spp. and hybrids) are done blooming.

Garden scissors we recommend

LIVINGO Multipurpose Heavy Duty Scissors
CastleGreens Plant Scissors

Pruners

If you have a pair of pruners in your pocket, you can tackle almost any deadheading job in the garden.

When to use pruners

Though pruners can deadhead just about any plant, they really come in handy when you want to cut thick or woody stems. They're a great solution for the pithy stems of bearded iris (Iris hybrids) or tough coneflowers (Echinacea spp. and hybrids).

Pruners we recommend for deadheading

FELCO Classic Manual Hand Pruner
Mueller Soft Grip Garden Pruning Shears
gonicc Professional Rotating Bypass Pruning Shears

Hedge shears

Sometimes you want to give an entire plant a haircut without needing to be careful about where the cuts happen.

When to use hedge shears

When you're in a hurry with lots of stems to cut, hedge shears make quick work of a plant, such as the big leaf coreopsis (C. grandiflora) above. Even better, you can tidy up perennials like threadleaf coreopsis (Coreopsis verticillata) that have hundreds of spent blooms on slender stems — it would take forever to cut them individually! Just be sure to trim the sides lower than the center to keep its mounded shape.

Hedge shears we recommend

Fiskars Powergear2 Hedge Shears
Tabor Tools Telescopic Hedge Shears
ARS Professional Hedge Shears

A passion for topiary

May I be a garden bully for just a moment? If you are a gardener, whether new or experienced, and have not yet dabbled in the joy, meditation and artistry of topiary, then I tell you, you simply must give it a go. Don’t let its mistaken reputation for being difficult, highly sophisticated and expensive fool you.
As you can see in my garden above, pruning plants into topiary forms gives you so many options for shapes and sizes. And it can be created out of the most common and inexpensive plants. A skinny, lanky boxwood (Buxus hybrid) in the clearance aisle may have great potential, as would a leggy basil (Ocimum basilicum) or coleus (Plectranthus hybrid) needing a good pinching to encourage bushiness. I often shop my own garden for topiary candidates: small junipers that have volunteered or been planted by birds or squirrels and trimmings of boxwood that took root after I clipped the hedge. Divisions or cuttings of herbs like rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus) may start small but over time can mature into beautiful specimens.

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The best plants for topiary

Plants used for topiary are typically evergreen with woody stems; have small needles, leaves or foliage; will develop a dense growing habit when frequently pruned; and have a compact or vertically upright and/or columnar growth pattern. But flowering plants like roses and lantana can be trained magnificently as well. I especially love clipping and training fragrant specimens like scented geranium (Pelargonium hybrid), rosemary and lavender (Lavandula spp. and hybrids).

For the impatient, wire forms can create “instant” topiary when you train long stems of rosemary, thyme, ivy (Hedera spp. and hybrids) or wire vine (Muhlenbeckia axillaris) around them. Obviously, however, depending on the scale and ambition of your topiary project, creating and training a topiary takes patience, a good eye and a steady hand. But most importantly, I have found it requires simple bravery, sharp shears and an attitude that one really can’t make a mistake. The worst haircuts ultimately grow out, after all.

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Favorite topiary plants

Selecting a good topiary candidate can be as easy as walking through your garden. Here are a few of my go-to plants.

• ‘Compacta’ dwarf myrtleMyrtus communis
  Good tabletop topiary. Has an expensive, sophisticated look. Needs a lot of moisture: Never let plants dry out. Responds well to frequent pruning. USDA cold zones 8 to 10.

• JuniperJuniperus chinensis
  Great for big outdoor specimens. Look for seedlings in your garden. Plants are very cold hardy and drought tolerant. USDA cold zones 4 to 9.

• Spanish lavenderLavandula stoechas
  Lavender is a little more difficult to start from scratch. It’s a good one to buy already in topiary form. Not always long lived but fragrant and beautiful while it lasts. USDA cold zones 8 to 11.

• ‘Sunshine’ Chinese privetLigustrum sinense
  This gold-foliaged shrub assumes topiary form very quickly when you start your own. Requires frequent pruning to maintain shape and size. USDA cold zones 6 to 10.

• BoxwoodBuxus microphylla and hybrids 
  Classic plant medium for creating topiaries. I like to use them both in containers and in the garden. They provide much-needed architectural evergreen structure in winter and in the growing season. USDA cold zones 5 to 9.

How to show off your topiary

In my own garden, I use topiaries in simple geometric forms like balls and cones planted rhythmically or as focal points around the landscape. But my favorite way to plant and stage them is in containers. I have huge potted specimens that are placed strategically in my outdoor living areas, and also collections of smaller plants grouped on plant stands and tables both inside and out. Sometimes I gather several in one spot, like on my potting bench. I love moving them about as they migrate between home and garden for holidays, interior decor or table centerpieces.

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Topiaries in containers

While topiaries can take complex forms, classic geometric ones like the simple lollipop shape, or standard, captivate me. Simple and elegant. Just like a topiary. Beautifully aged pots and carefully selected containers give your topiary, no matter how humble its origins, an expensive, finished look.

Finish off your topiary with a top dressing

Adding a top dressing to your topiary will complete the look and add another accent to the container. Here are a few of my favorite materials to use:

• Pea gravel
• Black stones
• Mini pinecones
• Moss
• Sphagnum moss

How to create a simple topiary

Once you start looking at the plant world through a topiary lens, you will be able to spot good candidates anywhere and everywhere. Myrtle topiaries are some of my favorites, and I’m always on the lookout for them. When a friend gave me this rooted cutting, I knew just what to do with it. Follow along as I show you.

Clean up ornamental grasses in spring

Ornamental grasses are some of the easiest perennials to care for — all you need to do is clean up the dead foliage in late winter or early spring. In this video Kristin walks you through cutting back four different species and has some tips that will save you time and effort, too.

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Pruning flowering shrubs to stimulate more blooms

If you want more color from your spring-blooming shrubs, start planning in spring while they are in flower. You may be surprised to find that pruning is the most effective way to stimulate your shrubs to bloom better, but you need to do it right after the flowers fade. Pruning can be a frightening task, but you won't hurt your plants, not if you do it the right way. And this isn’t hard to do. Here's how to prune spring-flowering shrubs to encourage more and bigger blooms for next year.

Shrub-pruning timing can be critical

Spring-flowering shrubs bloom on branches formed the year before. Don’t prune in the early spring or you'll cut off this year’s flowers. Wait until right after the flowers are spent, because these shrubs need time to form the buds on new summer growth for next year’s flowers. If you cut too late, you’ll cut off those buds and miss out on the blooms for a year. And if you prune them back too much, you may lose the flowers for a year or so, too. But don’t worry, I’ve included illustrations below showing you the simple shrub pruning techniques to use.

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How to deadhead a shrub to encourage more flowers

Deadheading, which you see in the illustration above, means snipping off just the spent flowers. Often on a deciduous shrub, you can even see new leaves sprouting at the base of the dying flowerhead. This makes the decision of where to cut easy on shrubs with large flowers, such as lilac or viburnum.

Spring is also when you should deadhead evergreens, such as rhododendron and mountain laurel, but don’t take off too much. They are often slower growing than their deciduous counterparts and take more time to recover. With your fingers, grasp each spent cluster of flowers at the base and give it a twist to snap it off. Do it early in the day, before the sun wilts the stems, and you’ll find they come away easily.

Tools You Might Like for Deadheading
Compact Garden Shear
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Tips for thinning spring-flowering shrubs

It would be very tough to deadhead all of the individual flowers on a forsythia, mockorange or deutzia. For shrubs like these, which have lots of small blossoms along the branches, trim back each stem tip after flowering to encourage more side branches and maintain the shape of the plant. Then remove a few of the older stems, cutting about a third of them down to within a few inches of the ground. The new stems that result from making these cuts will produce the best flowers over the next two to three years. As those stems mature, you take some of them out every year to make room for more new growth. This technique is called “thinning,” and you can see where to make cuts in the illustration above.

Tools You Might Like for Thinning Shrubs
Classic Hand Pruner
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Guide to pruning spring-flowering shrubs

Pruning spring-flowering shrubs is that simple. Deadheading and thinning are the only two pruning techniques you need to know to get more flowers for the 38 shrubs featured in the chart below.