Pruning
In microeconomics, pruning taken as a metaphor from gardening, refers to the removal of "excess" items from a budget.
In gardening, pruning is the practice of removing diseased, overmature, or otherwise unwanted portions from a woody plant. Pinching back herbaceous plants, such as chrysanthemums to encourage denser growth or more profuse or delayed flowering, is a form of pruning. So, on an even smaller scale, is the garden practice of "deadheading," or removing spent flowers before they begin to set seed, in order to concentrate a plant's energy on continued flower production. Shearing to form hedges or topiary is actually a form of pruning, in which most of the growing points are tipped back, to produced artificially dense growth. Proponents of pruning, both gardeners and orchardists, often argue that it is an art, and that it improves the health of the plant and makes sturdier structure, often referred to as the "scaffold"; opponents believe that pruning harms plants' "natural" forms.
Pruning is generally done during dormancy, often in early spring, where winter frost can harm a recently-pruned plant. Pruning, when well done, removes growing points and concentrates a plant's energy in the permanent structure that remains. Without a supply of growth-suppressant auxin produced by the growing points, dormant and even latent buds may be activated.
Some woody plants that tend to bleed profusely from cuts, such as Maples, or which callous over slowly, such as Magnolias, are better pruned at the onset of dormancy instead. Woody plants that flower early in the season, on spurs that form on wood that has matured the year before, should be pruned right after flowering: Forsythia, azaleas and lilacs all fall into this category. Later pruning will sacrifice flowers the following season.
