When and how to prune a firecracker plant for compact, healthy shrubs with prolific flowers

Firecracker plants are fantastic choices to add color and drama with their profusion of bright blooms. They also make excellent plants to attract pollinators. Their cascading growth habit makes them versatile plants but pruning becomes vital to keep them compact.

Whether you grow the firecracker plant in flower beds, rock gardens, or containers, pruning after flowering helps ensure they stay healthy and put on a fantastic show of blooms the next season.

Making the time to prune a firecracker plant annually should be simple. It will be a quick and easy task and the rewards are well worth it, as you can enjoy a compact, bushy, and proliferous blooming firecracker plant that attracts hummingbirds and butterflies.

Do you cut back a firecracker plant?

Firecracker plants do put on glorious displays every year, but they make you work to enjoy it. As well as full sun, regular watering and feeding, firecracker plants do need annual pruning to keep them at their best. But, as mentioned before, it isn’t demanding. To help you prune a firecracker plant, let's start with when to prune the shrubs then look at how.

When to prune a firecracker plant

Pruning firecracker plants keeps them healthy and tidy and ensures the flowering shrub puts on a great display of flowers. Those bright tubular blooms appear over a long season, from spring through fall, and the display will be enhanced through trimming.

The best time to prune firecracker plants is late winter or early spring, as plants bloom on new growth produced that year. A trim during dormancy should be on your spring gardening checklist as it will help promote bushy growth and guarantee a fantastic flowering show once the shrub bursts into life come spring.

Kiersten Rankel, a plant expert from the Greg app, advises that ‘right before the growing season starts’ provides the perfect window to trim. ‘This gives the plant plenty of time to recover and focus its energy on producing new shoots and flowers,’ she adds.

A second gentle trim when the shrub is actively growing during the summer can help preserve the shape and promote further flowering. A few, selected snips to prune back leggy or unkempt stems will also encourage bushier growth and keep the firecracker plant looking tidy and vibrant.

Kiersten Rankel

Kiersten Rankel is a certified Louisiana Master Naturalist and regularly volunteers with local community gardens and nonprofits to help restore critical ecosystems along the Gulf Coast. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking and tending to her 150+ houseplants and vegetable garden.

How to prune a firecracker plant

Pruning a firecracker plant is a simple task and, now you understand when to prune, we look at how to do it correctly in spring and during the season.

The first step comes before doing any trimming - and that is to make sure that your pruning tools are sharp and clean. Not only will sharp pruning shears make pruning easier, but it also means clean cuts that the plant can heal easily. Plus, clean pruning shears means no risk of transferring diseases from plant to plant around the backyard.

It starts as all shrub pruning should. That is to inspect the plant for dead, diseased, or damaged stems and remove them back to the base. Weak or straggly stems are also best removed to allow new, vigorous growth to replace them.

Next up comes the cuts to shape the shrub. ‘Trim the plant to the size and shape you want, cutting back any long or leggy stems,’ recommends Kiersten Rankel. ‘Thin-out areas that look too crowded to improve airflow and light for the remaining branches.’

Aim for a controlled but natural form achieved by removing selected stems. Avoid trimming the entire shrub to one height, as this would be a pruning mistake and leave the firecracker plant looking very unnatural. Be considerate with your pruning and remember the one-third pruning rule to not remove more than a third of the plant in one go.

Around a month after the firecracker plant starts blooming in the spring, pinch the stems back to encourage further branches and new growth to carry lots of flowers over the rest of the season.

Shop tools to prune a firecracker plant

FAQs

Do you need to deadhead a firecracker plant?

Deadheading is not required as firecracker plants flower heavily on their own. Deadheading will neaten the plant and encourage more flowers, however, the firecracker plant produces so many blooms it may be a painstaking process. Trimming the plant back lightly once it starts blooming is an easier way to get more flowers throughout the season. If you prefer a tidy backyard, removing messy spent flowers will neaten the plant and they can be snipped or pinched off.

Firecracker plants are heavy feeders, they need a lot of nutrients to put on their dramatic flowering displays. To help provide these nutrients, feed plants with a balanced fertilizer in spring after pruning.

Adding a product such as this organic all-purpose plant food at Walmart will give plants a boost of essential nutrients to promote a long blooming display. Continue feeding plants monthly throughout the flowering season to keep those blooms coming.