subject: When To Prune Climbing Plants [print this page] . The first thing you should master is pruning. In most cases you do not prune plants until late summer or early fall to avoid damaging the growth cycle of your plants. If you have climbers however it may become necessary to prune them much earlier to ensure that they do not damage your fences or other garden elements.
The first thing that you need to do is to consider when your plants bloom. With things like roses, morning glories, wisteria, and other climbers that flower this is generally in the early weeks of June and lasts until the first week or so of July when they die down. With plants that bloom later it may not be possible to prune them early as pruning may lead to re-growth and a second bloom which could leave them blooming when the frosts and colder weather arrives.
You need to make sure that when you start pruning your plants they are dormant, this means that they will not bloom again until next year. With plants like roses you generally have one blooming season that lasts from late June until late July unless you have a fall rose. When you start pruning you should take special care to look at the vines that you are trimming, if they are still supple and green you should try to wait a bit longer for them to die back so that you do not damage the plant. If you are unable to prune because the plant is still green you may be able to use trellises, ties, or other climbing plant aids to keep vines off the fences and other parts of your garden that you are trying to protect.
In general there are a few types of climbers that you need to worry about damaging your fences. Most climbers like morning glories and other small flower plants will re-grow their vines each year meaning that they cause little harm to fencing. The climbers that you want to watch are those that put out permanent vines that harden like the branches of a tree. Roses, wisteria, grapes, honeysuckle and several other climbing plants put out permanent vines that cannot be pruned lest you kill the plant. These climbers are often better if you provide them with a trellis to grow on and keep them away from fences and other garden fixtures that they may affect. For the most part a climber is not going to damage your fence if it stays there for a month or so during the summer, you should watch for climbers that put out woody vines as those are the plants that tend to damage fencing.
