Over the last few days I have been busy in the garden tidying up the spring flowers that have now passed their prime and pruning the lilacs.

 When it comes to pruning, you have to be very careful not to prune too much otherwise you upset the blooms for next year. You really do need to know the flowering habit of a shrub before you start to prune.  The usual guideline is shrubs that flower on wood made in the same season can be cut back hard in early spring, e.g. Buddleias, Spireas.  Shrubs that flower on wood made the previous year should not be pruned in the winter or spring otherwise you will be cutting off all the potential flowers, e.g. Forsythia, Hydrangea.

In the case of lilacs, they can be pruned throughout the year.  At this time, I just cut off the dead flowers and prune out any dead wood or diseased stems.  Over the year I keep cutting back the suckers at the base of the shrub and will leave one or two strong stems to grow.