At a guess, try pruning in late April and the best flowers might be out in September as a result. Butterflies love my apple and plum trees. Comma, red admiral, small tortoiseshell and peacocks come in droves to drink sugary juices from damaged, ripe fruit left on the trees. Proof, if ever any was needed, that untidy gardening suits wildlife. Leave dead bits of branch on the trees and these will attract woodpeckers.
Finches come looking for seeds in autumn.
An overgrown herb patch with seeding fennel and tansy will attract finches, wrens, chiffchaffs and so forth looking for seeds or insects. Leave all the dead stems on the herbs well into winter. At the spring end of the year, just make sure there are lots of primroses, flowering bulbs and a good succession of flowers for bees and early butterflies, such as brimstones. There are small, paler green bract-like structures almost sheathing the green flower stem. Trace the stem back from the last dead flower until you come to one of these structures and cut just above it.