It is important to correctly assess the value of a shoot for expert pruning care on trees and shrubs. Fundamental criteria are age, position and garnish with flower buds. This guide provides an overview of the most important shoot types on shrubs and trees.

For a professional pruning, it is important to know and respect the types of shoots

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  1. Drive types with short definition - overview in alphabetical order
  2. Estimating the age of a drive type correctly - this is how it works

    3. Drive types with short definition - overview in alphabetical order

    The following overview gives you a brief overview of all the important drive types that home gardeners should be familiar with for a skilful pruning:

    • Bouquet shoot: short branch stub with 5 or more flower buds; mostly on cherries and some types of plums
    • Fruit shoot: Perennial shoot that is richly decorated with flower buds and bears a corresponding number of fruits
    • Fruit skewer: very short annual fruit shoot with a single flower bud at the top
    • Competitive instinct: annual branch that buds from the first bud below the top bud and competes with its budding
    • Short shoot: a shoot less than 20 centimeters long
    • Long shoot: a shoot with more than 20 centimeters
    • Leading shoot: supporting branch that, together with the central shoot, forms the framework of a tree crown
    • Stem shoot: stiffly upright, fast-growing shoot on the top of branches or on worn fruit wood
    • Water shot: a shoot rising steeply from old wood, a dormant eye, or a game base

    Estimating the age of a drive type correctly - this is how it works

    In order to reliably determine the value of a drive type, you should be able to estimate its age. Gardeners differentiate between this and annual shoots, biennial shoots and old wood. You can read about the criteria by which these three age groups differ here:

    This and annual shoots

    There is talk of this and annual shoots as long as a branch grows in length during the first summer. If the shoot has completed its growth before winter or completes it in the following spring, it is considered an annual shoot. These shoots are characterized by unbranched growth with clearly visible buds. Popular summer bloomers, such as the butterfly bush, bloom on this year's shoots and are therefore pruned heavily every spring. On spring bloomers, such as spirae, the one-year long shoots carry the most vital blossom wood. Here, too, the gardener grabs the scissors once a year.

    Biennial shoots

    If the second summer is coming to an end for a branch, it is counted among the two-year-old shoots. As a rule, a two-year-old shoot can be identified by the fact that it carries a number of one-year-old side branches. In the course of the following years, further branches emerge. These are annual, annual and biennial, while the supporting shoot ages noticeably.

    old wood

    When talking about old wood, it is mostly three-year-old and older shoots. Flowering shrubs that bloom on old wood are rare in the plant kingdom. A typical representative is the witch hazel. The autumn or winter flowering shrub puts its buds on this year's and perennial branches in summer, so that it only needs a moderate pruning. Among the fruit trees, there are apples and sweet cherries, which impress with fruit wood that is several years old and should also be pruned very cautiously.

    tips

    The younger the shoots of a flowering shrub or fruit tree have to be in order to flower and bear fruit, the more time-consuming it is to take care of the pruning. Buddleia, spirea, peach or sour cherry depend on young blossom and fruit wood. These types of plants should only be included in the planting plan if the gardener has the time to do so.

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