Blog: Embrace a major Chelsea trend in your garden for nothing!
It is important to rejuvenate old plants instead of discarding them, and here’s one way to do it: create a multi-stemmed shrub or tree as a focal point.
You often see large shrubs or small trees pruned this way on RHS Chelsea show gardens (see my round-up of 2025’s event). They offer a way if using bigger plants with impact in smaller spaces. The raised crowns and bare stems create a feeling of space, enabling you to grow a wide range of understorey plants beneath the shrub. Attention is focused on the beauty of the bark, and of course, you can prune the top growth in any way you choose, or leave it to sprout naturally.
How to create a multi-stemmed shrub – which plants to choose
What shrubs to use? Well, the world’s your oyster! Make sure your tree/shrub has multiple stems to begin with. Many trees have a single trunk and may not be suitable, although pollarding on a trunk works well with trees like Eucalyptus. This simply means cutting growth down to where the trunk starts to break into branches. Although it looks brutal, hard pollarding in late winter will bring you lots of new blue-green classic round-leaved growth by the end of May.
I chose to use an outdated, forgotten favourite of the 1980s – Weigela Florida Variegata. I planted this about 30 years ago and it was seriously overgrown, about 10ft tall and growing into the hedge, meaning we couldn’t cut it. As part of the hedge renovation and my Stiga trial (this tool made such heavy pruning a doddle), it was easy to achieve.
Firstly, decide how high you want your main stems, and how many. I thinned mine to five main trunks rising to about 4-5ft. Make sure to prune out all side branches below this mark.
Using battery loppers
Next, get in there with the big loppers, either battery-operated like mine or ratchet manual ones. You’ll need a hand to catch the excess growth. I opted to cut my shrub’s main stems all at the same height – you could vary them if you fancy cloud pruning, or create a dome shape with the highest in the centre. For me, it didn’t really matter, as I plan to trim the new growth into a flattened dome once it’s filled out.
By this stage, you may be convinced that you’ve gone too far and the shrub will die. The reality is, most respond very well to hard pruning and it’s best to do it in spring. Make sure they are well watered, give them a granular feed of Growmore and a heavy mulch to suppress weeds.
Within a few weeks, you’ll find new shoots all over the stems. Keep rubbing off shoots you don’t want below the top of the main stems. Remove any suckers coming up from the base. This will encourage the plant to put all its energy into growth where you want it.
How to create a multi-stemmed shrub – keep on pruning
To keep your shrub as a multi-stemmed plant, keep on pruning out the bits you don’t want. If it flowers and you want to keep them on the upper growth, only cut spring-flowering shrubs like mine AFTER flowering. However, if your shrub flowers late in the year, it will form flower buds in the same growing season, so prune in late winter.
To be honest, I’m not wild about the candy-pink flowers on my Weigela, so cutting off flower buds wasn’t an issue for me. It has variegated foliage (not everyone’s cup of tea) but it does lighten up a dark spot at the back of the border.
Don’t feel pressured into buying expensive topiary and cloud-pruned specimens from nurseries – they cost a fortune. With a bit of time, loppers and secateurs, you can turn the most boring shrub into something special. I’ve also used this technique on Viburnums and Cornus (dogwoods) with great success. Give it a go!
