Pteridophytes come in all shapes and sizes, but just like bryophytes they don’t produce any flowers, fruits or seeds. You’ll mainly see pteridophytes in the form of ferns, horsetails and club mosses. Whilst the main reason for pruning is to get rid of dead flowers and promote the growth of fruit, you won’t have to worry about either of these reasons.
Instead, you’ll want to prune to make the plants more aesthetically appealing and to remove any sections of the plants that are diseased or dying.
So, without further ado, let’s get into the rules you should follow.
Pruning Ferns
Pruning ferns may seem difficult due to the excessive amount of leaves that make up the plant, but they’re really not. It’s just a matter of identifying the old fronds and cutting them back at the right time.
For those of you that don’t know, fronds are the leafy parts of a fern. So, to identify the old fronds all you need to do is look at the centre of the plant and locate the new growing fronds. The older ones will form a ring around the outside of these.
Ferns should only be pruned when they reach three to four years old. This away you won’t accidently remove new growth and permanently ruin the future growth. Ideally you’ll want to prune ferns in late winter or early spring. This is before the growth season starts and will make it a lot easier to locate the older fronds without removing the new ones.
Your Alpha Six pruning shears are the perfect tool to use to effectively cut back any old fronds. Haven’t invested in a pair of pruning shears, click here to find out more. Just grip the frond that you want to remove firmly by the stem with one hand, and then cut as close to the base as possible with the pruning shears. It’s as easy as that.
Pruning Club Mosses
Club mosses need to be pruned regularly to keep their extensive growth under control. You’ll want to limit the pruning to spring though, so you don’t end up overdoing it. Spring is the perfect time as it will really help to maintain the shape and overall look of the plant, whilst keeping it healthy and full too.
Because club mosses are such vigorous growers you can actually get away with pruning up to half of the plant. That may seem a little over the top, but it will save you a lot of going back forth pruning it throughout the whole of spring.
Don’t worry about the club moss not growing back either. It will definitely fill out again and you’ll end up having a much healthier and happier plant. Not to mention the fact it’ll be bushier too.
Pruning Horsetails
Horsetails are great plants to have in your garden if you don’t want to have to spend too much time maintaining it. They don’t actually require any pruning whatsoever as they’re a very self-sufficient, but for aesthetics you can prune them like any other plant.
Once again pruning shears are the best tool to use to trim horsetails. You can thin out the dense clusters of horsetail by trimming each stem individually, but be sure to cut down to the soil line at a 45 degree angle.
As a very disease-resistant plant you won’t have to prune for this purpose, but you may come across a diseased stem rarely so do keep your eye out for that. Also when you do trim and prune horsetail make sure you don’t remove more than a third of the plant’s total growth in one session. You don’t want to butcher the plant after all.
Pteridophytes are an adventurous plant type to prune, so have fun with it. It’s difficult to go wrong and there aren’t really that many rules to follow when you think about it. So, go out and prune to your hearts content!