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Prune young Victoria plum
strelitzia32
Posts: 758
in Fruit & veg
I put in a new Victoria plum earlier this year, it was only around 3 foot tall bare root. Over the spring & summer its sent up 2 tall main branches, I'm actually surprised how fast they've grown. They're about 8ft high now.
They're dead straight, in a perfect position and I want to use them to start my structure. Ideally I'd like to cut them back by a few feet to get the side branches started.
I know I should really do this in spring because it's a young tree, but I don't want to leave the 2 leader stems growing for the next month+ - I want to start the structure instead of it putting energy into growth I'm going to take out.
Any plum experts have thoughts on the best approach? Do I cut it back now or wait until next spring?
They're dead straight, in a perfect position and I want to use them to start my structure. Ideally I'd like to cut them back by a few feet to get the side branches started.
I know I should really do this in spring because it's a young tree, but I don't want to leave the 2 leader stems growing for the next month+ - I want to start the structure instead of it putting energy into growth I'm going to take out.
Any plum experts have thoughts on the best approach? Do I cut it back now or wait until next spring?
0
Posts
You need to cut back, and train into shape now while the limbs are young and pliable, as they set solid and won't move next year.
I used string and weights to hold limbs at the angle I wanted for a year (bricks on the end on the ground) as an open centre is needed to keep the tree healthy. Any limbs crossing need to be sorted, and the form you want the tree to become needs working out now.
My tree is on dwarf root stock, has been trained christmas tree shape, ( sounds odd but works for the space) and has taken four years to come into heavy fruit stage. The main limbs have been trained espallier style to keep air flowing through the middle, but fan shape works too, depends on how tall you want the tree to finish.
Hope this is the kind of information you wanted, if you need anything else just ask.😀
I'm ok with the pruning approach, I've got some gage trees elsewhere too. What I want to specifically check is whether it's ok to prune now. I do my mature gages this month, but the RHS advice and everything I can find specifically says that you should prune "young" plums in their first years, in spring.
I was a bit surprised by that, I assumed silver leaf was a risk, but apparently not. Do you know if there's any risk in pruning it now, like a more mature tree?