Jasmine is a flowering plant you can grow outdoors or indoors, depending on your yard space and the area’s climate. When grown outdoors, jasmine can become an extensive vine on the side of a fence or home. But some people prefer to keep the plant in a pot and control its growth from a windowsill.
However you grow your jasmine, pruning the plant is part of the ongoing care it needs to bloom and flourish. Knowing how to prune jasmine is par for the course, and caring for the plant. Whether you decide to grow summer or winter jasmine, you’ll need to learn the ins and outs of pruning. So, let’s get started!
Pay Attention to the Season
Summer and winter jasmine have different growing seasons, meaning they produce beautiful white flowers during different times of the year. If you have a summer plant, you’ll notice it starts blooming in the summer and through the early fall. Winter jasmine, on the other hand, starts showing its flowers toward the end of winter and into early spring.
When pruning your jasmine plant, you’ll need to pay attention to when it blooms. The key is to prune after the flowers come out, not before. Pruning your jasmine plant before the flowers bloom might remove the buds that produce the flowers, thus keeping the jasmine plant from blooming.
Remove the Dead Stems
Once you’ve determined it’s the right time to prune your plant, the next thing is to look for dead, diseased, or damaged stems because you should remove them first. Eliminating the dead and damaged stems frees up space for the good parts of the plant to grow. Removing dead and damaged parts of the plant will also make the jasmine plant look healthier.
When you remove diseased portions of a jasmine plant, you also prevent infection from spreading. When plant diseases run rampant, they can end up damaging or killing the entire plant. After all your hard work, that’s the last thing you want. You also don’t want the disease to spread to nearby plants, trees, and shrubs.
Trim the Overgrowth
The next step in learning how to prune jasmine is trimming back tangled stems and those growing in the “wrong” direction. Tangled stems can reduce the appeal of a plant’s appearance and make caring for the jasmine difficult. You might find some stems that are still alive but no longer blooming. Go ahead and cut these back as well.
You can also help your jasmine plant grow in the direction you want. For instance, you wouldn’t want a vine to start invading your neighbor’s yard. You can better control the plant by cutting back overgrowth that’s gone in less than desired directions.
To help your jasmine plant grow in a specific direction, remove the portion extending above or around the plant’s leaf stem. Only remove the part of the growth going in an undesired direction.
You might also want to shorten stems to keep the plant’s growth within certain boundaries. For example, you can prune and remove parts of a stem that are growing too high on a structure.
Prune Once a Year
Pruning your jasmine plant too little or too much could damage or stunt its growth. Ideally, you should only prune jasmine once a year. For summer jasmine, it’s best to prune once in the fall; for winter jasmine, prune the plant once in the spring.
However, you’ll want to pay attention to how the jasmine is blooming and growing once the peak growth season starts to wane. Some established plants might need more work than new ones if there was previous neglect or a lack of proper care. This additional care is common with jasmine in a garden or near a structure of a recently sold home.
Once you get a pruning routine set, you’ll hopefully notice that you have a thriving and beautiful jasmine plant.
Final Thoughts
There are many varieties of summer and winter Jasmin, including confederate jasmine. Learning how to prune jasmine takes knowledge and care with some critical steps to keep in mind, such as timing and removing overgrowth. If you follow this guide on how to prune jasmine, you’ll keep your summer or winter jasmine plant healthy and growing as long as you keep up with its routine.