Our nation’s bard, Rabbie Burns admitted that ‘when a’ the hills are covered with snaw…up in the morning’s no for me’. Especially today on his birthday, this renownedly reluctant farmer would probably have been sorry to see his excuse for staying abed melt along with the snow. But we gardeners are desperate to get going and there’s no shortage of tasks.

These jobs fall into 3 categories: caring for our perennials; sowing and planting newcomers; and ensuring our gardens are designed to attract a rich and diverse wildlife community.

Today, I’ll look at plant care, where pruning plays a large part. Done properly, it keeps trees and shrubs in good heart and growing the way we want. Many gardeners know they should prune but are terrified they’ll ‘get it wrong’.

Of course, bad pruning is damaging. You can overdo it, but rarely kill the bush, or stimulate it into ferocious growth. You can prune at the wrong time and snip off all the emerging flower buds. Or prune it like a hedge and end up with a tangly, unproductive mess.

But a bit of common sense, understanding how pruning affects a plant’s growth, and learning about the needs of the particular plant you’re working on, makes pruning very straightforward. And plants are forgiving souls. It doesn’t matter if you cut off the wrong stem by mistake, it’ll grow another one.

Start by helping the tree recover from storm damage or disease. Remove affected branches by cutting right back to the join with the trunk or a larger branch, never leaving any unsightly stubs.

Carry out these repairs whenever they happen. The second reason for pruning is to control size and shape. This formative pruning must be done at the right time of year. Most deciduous trees, including fruit trees, but not plums, cherries, peaches and apricots, should be pruned in winter as should many late summer and autumn flowering shrubs.

Pruning fruit trees just now is much easier without leaf cover; you can see what you’re doing. Clearly precise pruning techniques depend on the size and design of the tree, and how much you need to train it.

You’ll quickly identify congested areas and crossing branches. On apple trees much of this year’s new growth should have been removed during a summer prune, so the aim now is to remove crossing and upward-facing branches and to control height and shape.

Pruning affects the flow of sap to stems and branches and we use this to control how and where a plant grows. Sap naturally rises to the tip, or apical meristem, of a plant’s leading stem, making this the dominant growing point. Pruning cuts off this flow. The sap is then redirected to the lower buds or causes new ones to burst along a stem. This explains why you can get the ‘bunch of bananas’ effect just below a pruned point.

So the harder the pruning, the more vigorous the regrowth in spring as the plant strives to replace what has been removed. Ironically, pruning an overly vigorous tree could make it grow bigger.

We take hard pruning a step further by cutting some plants almost to ground level. This applies to the likes of late summer and early autumn flowering clematis and autumn fruiting raspberries.

Unpruned, they would throw out buds, flowers and fruits along the weak old growth and to prevent this, we reduce stems to around 15cm above ground level. The plants are then forced to throw up fresh vigorous stems instead.

During recovery the plant expends more energy. It therefore needs extra feeding with compost and a dressing of blood, fish and bone and then a good watering and mulch.

Plant of the week

Galanthus ‘Atkinsii’ is one of the first snowdrops to flower in the new year. Elegant and faintly honey scented flowers have their inner tepals are marked with a green wishbone at the tip.