Pruning Dutchman’s Pipe Plant
You will want to prune your dutchman’s pipe vine for a couple of reasons.
First, by removing damaged or dead wood from your dutchman’s pipe plant, the plant gets more air, which will prevent disease better. Dutchman’s pipe pruning also increases the production of flowers because the plant gets rejuvenated.
How and When to Prune Dutchman’s Pipe
Pruning dutchman’s pipe is not too difficult or complicated. You can do minimal pruning whenever you want to remove any dead or diseased branches. You can clean up the dutchman’s pipe vine by removing damaged or crossed branches, which will give your vine a better look. In the summertime, after the vine is done flowering, you have an opportunity for more intensive dutchman’s pipe pruning. At this time, you can cut back the shoots and prune back some of the old growth to the ground. This helps make the plant a little heartier for the next season. In the spring, pruning dutchman’s pipe will help to encourage new growth and it will improve the flowering since dutchman’s pipe vine flowers grow on new wood. Sucker pruning can be performed at this time too by removing some of the flowers that appear on the wood from the previous year. In other words, remove half the flowers that are on the old wood. This makes for a stronger plant and a better growing season. This is really no different than picking suckers off your tomato plants or cherry trees. Remember that you can prune your dutchman’s pipe plant any time of year, depending on what you are pruning the plant for. Pruning dutchman’s pipe is easy and basically a matter of common sense. Anyone can handle this job, and anyone can figure out what the plant needs. Dutchman’s pipe plants are quite hardy and can handle just about anything you happen to do to it.
