← All guides · Coastal species · Updated September 2026

How to prune a tamarisk hedge: species timing, nesting-season check and renovation for Broadstairs CT10.

The biggest mistake people make with tamarisk is cutting it at the wrong time of year, and the right time depends entirely on which species you have. Get the timing wrong and you either lose the following year's flowers entirely or end up with a hedge that gets progressively rangier because every cut lands in bare old wood. This guide sets out how to identify your tamarisk, choose the correct window, and make the cut without killing the display.

Steps

Step 1: Identify whether your tamarisk flowers in spring or summer

Before doing anything else, note when your tamarisk produces its feathery pink flower plumes. This single observation governs everything that follows. Tamarix tetrandra (the four-stamened tamarisk, an RHS Award of Garden Merit plant) flowers on wood produced the previous season: plumes appear in April and May, before or alongside the first flush of new growth. Tamarix ramosissima (and the closely related T. gallica) flowers from June through to September on stems produced in the current growing season. If you are unsure which species you have, look at the flower time: anything producing colour before mid-June is a spring-flowerer; anything from mid-June onwards is a summer-flowerer. The pruning dates are completely different for each group and cannot be swapped without consequences.

Step 2: Choose the correct pruning window before picking up any tool

For spring-flowering tamarisk (T. tetrandra): prune immediately after the flowers fade, typically late May to the third week of June. The window closes once the plant starts directing energy into next year's flower buds on the new growth. Cutting in autumn or winter removes all the developing buds and produces a bush full of bare stems but no flowers the following spring. For summer-flowering tamarisk (T. ramosissima and T. gallica): prune in late February or March, before growth breaks. Hard cuts in this window are fine and produce vigorous new flowering stems through the summer. Cutting in late summer or autumn is possible as a tidying exercise but reduces the following year's display. The annual trim for both types should remove around one-third to one-half of the previous season's new growth, always cutting back to a healthy lateral shoot or a clearly visible pair of buds, never into bare old grey wood.

Step 3: Check for nesting birds before making any cut

Tamarisk grown as informal hedging or screening on the Thanet clifftop bays can hold nesting whitethroat, linnet and dunnock within its dense feathery interior. Walk the full length of the hedge at close range and watch for repeated adult bird movements into one section before you cut. If you find or suspect an active nest, stop.

Step 4: Make the pruning cut, always stopping at green wood

Use sharp secateurs or loppers: hedge trimmer blades shred the fine, wispy foliage of tamarisk and leave a ragged cut surface that browns badly. Work along the hedge from one end to the other, cutting each stem back to a lateral shoot or a bud node, removing the length specified in Step 2. The single most important technical rule: stop as soon as the cut surface turns from pale green to bare grey or brown. Grey woody material in tamarisk does not regenerate. Unlike yew or hawthorn, which can break from old wood after a hard cut, tamarisk produces new growth only from buds on young wood. A cut that reaches into the grey zone produces a dead stub, not a new shoot.

Step 5: Shape the hedge profile as an informal screen

Tamarisk does not hold a tight formal shape, and forcing one on it causes more problems than it solves: the arching growth habit means repeated hard cuts to produce flat sides either land in old wood (creating dead patches) or require cuts so light they do nothing for the plant's vigour. On Broadstairs gardens I maintain tamarisk as a rounded or gently arching informal screen, 1.5-2.5m tall, wider at the base than the top, with the natural arch of the stems allowed to express itself. On clifftop positions at Kingsgate and North Foreland where the NE wind sets a strong prevailing direction, I allow a slight lean into the wind rather than fighting to keep the face vertical: a tamarisk that is pruned with its natural lean produces a denser, more wind-resistant barrier than one constantly cut back against its growth direction.

Step 6: Clear clippings and inspect the result

Tamarisk clippings are light and feathery but voluminous: a 4m run of healthy tamarisk produces a surprising amount of loose material. Rake or gather and bag them rather than leaving on the soil surface, where the fine stems mat down and can harbour disease. Step back 5-6 metres after clearing and look at the hedge profile. Any section that looks noticeably thinner or more open than the rest may indicate a patch where you cut into old wood: note the location and monitor it. New growth will not come from those cuts; if significant gaps open over the following season, a replant or a supplementary plant alongside is the only real remedy.

The two species you will find in Broadstairs gardens

Tamarix tetrandra is the species most often sold for screening. It is the spring-flowerer: pink plumes in April and May, arching grey-brown stems, and a mature spread of 3-4 metres left unpruned. It holds the RHS Award of Garden Merit, and the RHS lists it as suitable for coastal planting.

Tamarix ramosissima (sometimes sold as T. pentandra) is the summer-flowerer: deeper pink than T. tetrandra, flowers July to September, more erect in growth. It is less often planted, and suits a sheltered aspect. Its pruning in late February-March is entirely outside the nesting-season window, which makes it the lower-risk species for a gardener uncomfortable with the June timing check.

Renovation of a neglected or badly timed tamarisk

A tamarisk that has been cut in winter for several years (typically because the owner did not know the species or followed a general "tidy in November" approach) will have progressively shorter and shorter stubs of old wood, with flowering only at the very tips of whatever new growth managed to push past the previous cut. This is recoverable, but it takes a deliberate approach. For a summer-flowerer, cut the whole plant back hard to a low framework (30-40cm from the ground) in late February: it is a drastic step but tamarisk responds strongly to a hard reset on young wood. For a spring-flowerer, a hard reset in late February removes any flowering potential for that spring, but allows a full season of new growth that can then be pruned correctly in June the following year. If the plant has been cut into grey dead wood right to the base and shows no living green shoots, it is almost certainly unsalvageable and a replant is the better decision.

Why tamarisk works on the Thanet coast where other hedges fail

Many hedging species that look fine inland struggle right on the Thanet coast. Salt-laden northeast winds off the North Sea scorch the cut faces of Griselinia, kill back the tips of Photinia and strip the leaves from privet in exposed positions above the bays. Tamarisk stands out because its tiny, scale-like leaves and flexible stems are evolved for coastal salt spray: it grows wild on shingle shores and saltmarsh edges throughout the Mediterranean and takes the Thanet coast's northeast exposure without complaint. The RHS says tamarisk grows well in most soils and wants a well-drained, sunny site in coastal plantings, but dislikes shallow chalky soil, so on very thin chalk topsoil it needs good planting preparation and watering until established. Once established it copes well with the dry summers Thanet regularly produces: the area gets around 615mm of rain a year, one of the drier parts of England.

Sources: Royal Horticultural Society, Tamarix tetrandra plant entry (rhs.org.uk/plants/58409/tamarix-tetrandra/details, AGM status, pruning group and coastal suitability); Royal Horticultural Society, Tamarix gallica plant entry (rhs.org.uk/plants/56738/tamarix-gallica/details); BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine, “How to grow a tamarisk tree” (gardenersworld.com/how-to/grow-plants/tamarisk-tree/); Ashridge Nurseries, “Tamarisk hedging plants” (ashridgetrees.co.uk/p/hedging/tamarisk-tamarix-tetrandra, UK nursery, Somerset); Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, section 1.