Oregano plants serve a lot of purposes and the majority of its uses include seasoning Italian dishes and spaghetti as well as other herbal benefits.
Oregano plants are a perennial plant that grows every year during its season without you having to replant them. It is important to frequently harvest them before they blossom, and if you are not in need to harvest your oregano plants, then they have to be trimmed or pruned to encourage more growth.
Now, if you may be asking the question “how do I trim my oregano plant.” Well, whether you have harvested enough from the plant during its season or not, trimming the oregano plants near the end of the harvest season and before the first frost is important to ensure that the plants does well subsequently.
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How Often Should You Trim Your Oregano Bushes?
Whether you harvest from your garden often or not, we recommend trimming oregano bushes at least twice a year throughout the harvest season.
Typically, if all the conditions for propagating healthy oregano bushes are met, the plants should be able to grow and provide you with opportunities to harvest it every six to eight weeks. With this in place, you should trim the bushes only once near the beginning of the season and once near the end.
It is important to state here that you should not trim this shrub late August or early September. Doing this deprives the plant from making new growth to maturity before the first frost.
Haven established the fact that oregano plants need to be trimmed, let us further take a look at how to trim this shrub the right way.
How Do I Trim My Oregano Plant?
Here, we will be looking at the step by step process you can follow to trim your oregano plant. But first, below are a few things you will need for the job:
- Pruning shears
- Soil
- Mulch
First, understand that pruning implies chopping off all the old growth to make way for the new one.
You’d want to ensure that you have got the best pruners for the job and the one that fits your hands for easy maneuverability.
The following steps show how to achieve this.
Step 1
Depending on how grown the plant is, it may first require hard pruning at the first stage to expose new growth that’s hiding underneath. Use pruning shears to cut the foliages down to about 2 – 3 inches.
Step 2
Now the base of the plant is exposed and you can now also see the soil. At this stage, the shrub will require a brief session of light pruning.
The idea of this second session is to remove some of those dead woody stems and leggy softer stems. Also, these will tidy up things so your garden looks attractive.
While most gardeners may want to skip this second step, it is important to clean things up as much as possible so that your oregano plant doesn’t look like it’s been scalped for a month or so.
Trimming your oregano plant is done in the same procedure whether it’s grown in a pot or the ground.
The plant will grow again to its full growth potential and prove you more harvest.
Trimming Your Oregano Plant For Winter
Cut your oregano plant down to the ground after the first frost. By this time, the shrub should have already gone dormant in response to the coming winter.
Cutting the stems short offers protection to the plant during the winter.
So you may be wondering why we listed soil as part of the requirement for the trimming procedure.
Well, this is only required at the last trimming in preparation for winter.
Cover the remaining stub of the oregano plant with soil for protection especially in areas where severe cold temperature is experienced. For added protection, add a 5-inch layer of mulch over the soil.
Will Oregano Grow Back After Winter?
Just like all perennials, oregano will certainly grow back once the temperature starts to heat up.
You may not even need to take off the covering soil or mulches previously used. New branches and leaves will sprout out of the soil once its season is due.
Do not forget that the procedure for preparing oregano plants for winter highlighted above is important. The topsoil and mulching help oregano survive winter frost.
Conclusion
The final trimming of your oregano plants also allows you to harvest what is left from the plant. Strip off the leaves from the stem and you can use them fresh or hang the stems upside down to dry.
Just like other plants, trimming them rightly helps to prevent flowering while improving the overall health of the plant.
