Forum home› Problem solving
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

Serious water shoots on our apple & pear trees

julied700julied700 Posts: 2
in Problem solving
Hi - I have just moved to a new home and we have a lovely old apple and pear tree, but they need some serious pruning & I don't want to make any mistakes....

Everything I read says to prune in Winter, but my mother heard that they should be left until Summer.... surely that's not right? Can anyone advise best approach? Also, where should I concentrate my efforts? There's so many shoots! I'd be very grateful for any help!

Posts

  • fidgetbonesfidgetbones Posts: 17,618
    It looks like someone murdered it last winter. The response is what you see. If all of those shoots had been cut back to two buds in August, you would have a lot of fruit this year. As it is, I would wait until August this year and then summer prune it, leaving about a foot of the new growth, so that fruit buds can form for the following year.  If you cut it hard now, it will just do what you see again.
  • Allotment BoyAllotment Boy Posts: 6,774
    Yes there is an old saying growth follows the knife. You have the exact advice I would give above.
    AB Still learning

  • julied700julied700 Posts: 2
    Amazing! Thank you so much.... so pleased I asked  ;)

Sign In or Register to comment.