Garden Q&A: What's the best season to prune a bay tree?
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Can I give my bay-leaf tree a hard prune now to tidy it up or is it better to wait until spring?
I would wait until spring has sprung. Hard pruning any evergreen shrub will put it under stress until new growth emerges and the plant can photosynthesise properly once more. You don’t want the bay-leaf tree — or any plant — to be under such stress as we come into the winter when the temperatures are dropping.
When you prune you are promoting new growth in the plant and this tender new growth will be vulnerable to damage from frost and low temperatures.
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