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Neglected "renovation". Fruit trees: apple, pear, plum
es.megis.mozog
Posts: 2
in Fruit & veg
Hello everyone,
I signed up as a volunteer gardener for a rural Primary school a year ago in the south of England. Having spent my childhood, teenage years and early adulthood raising large amounts of flowers, fruit and vegetables with my parents, I thought I could make a difference helping a budget stricken school with its generous space including an allotment a coppiced wood and about 15 fruit trees, most of them covered in lichen.
However. The previous caretaker, now retired, has severely cut back all fruit trees about three years ago in an attempt to tackle the overgrown canopy, tackle disease and start from scratch. When I mean seriously, I mean cutting all branches back to about 2 to 5 feet from the main trunk. The result after 3 years are about 60 to a 100 water shoots in a dense goblet shape on a 3 to 5 feet trunk. Having no time to do everything, I started pruning about a quarter of the branches in 6 trees (three apples and three plums), to see what happens. Those six trees bore some fruit this year. The rest, none as the nature of water shoots.
Explained this to the head teacher and we agreed that this renovation attempt has to be kept under control by an expert. My advice was to continue with the pruning for the rest of the trees bit by bit, and in say three years time these trees will bear fruit once again, unless of course some disease will hamper the yield. I also suggested summer pruning vigorous shoots in the middle, to restrict their growth.
However, after she listened to the expert, she decided to go with the expert idea. Here is what he suggested: Winter prune all trees and every branches again, because summer pruning would kill them.
Did I just miss a meeting? I mean I never ever heard or experienced a tree dying as a result of summer pruning. Given the type and age of the tree it can be argued what growth it will put on the next year or what the yield will be, but dying?
These trees were cut back so severely and neglected. My point is that the school would like to see these trees fruiting again as soon as possible and not another myriad of water shoots tangled with side shoots next spring.
I signed up as a volunteer gardener for a rural Primary school a year ago in the south of England. Having spent my childhood, teenage years and early adulthood raising large amounts of flowers, fruit and vegetables with my parents, I thought I could make a difference helping a budget stricken school with its generous space including an allotment a coppiced wood and about 15 fruit trees, most of them covered in lichen.
However. The previous caretaker, now retired, has severely cut back all fruit trees about three years ago in an attempt to tackle the overgrown canopy, tackle disease and start from scratch. When I mean seriously, I mean cutting all branches back to about 2 to 5 feet from the main trunk. The result after 3 years are about 60 to a 100 water shoots in a dense goblet shape on a 3 to 5 feet trunk. Having no time to do everything, I started pruning about a quarter of the branches in 6 trees (three apples and three plums), to see what happens. Those six trees bore some fruit this year. The rest, none as the nature of water shoots.
Explained this to the head teacher and we agreed that this renovation attempt has to be kept under control by an expert. My advice was to continue with the pruning for the rest of the trees bit by bit, and in say three years time these trees will bear fruit once again, unless of course some disease will hamper the yield. I also suggested summer pruning vigorous shoots in the middle, to restrict their growth.
However, after she listened to the expert, she decided to go with the expert idea. Here is what he suggested: Winter prune all trees and every branches again, because summer pruning would kill them.
Did I just miss a meeting? I mean I never ever heard or experienced a tree dying as a result of summer pruning. Given the type and age of the tree it can be argued what growth it will put on the next year or what the yield will be, but dying?
These trees were cut back so severely and neglected. My point is that the school would like to see these trees fruiting again as soon as possible and not another myriad of water shoots tangled with side shoots next spring.
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Winter pruning will stimulate growth (something to do with the hormones which kick in when light levels increase I think).
Summer pruning is used to maintain shape without stimulating lots of new growth.
I stand to be corrected on both of those statements....
Based on my limited knowledge I agree that hard winter pruning will stimulate the growth of lots of water shoots again.
An approach of conservative winter pruning (apples) plus some summer pruning to maintain shape would seem the right way to go. I have never heard of summer pruning killing a mature fruit tree.
I think the plum trees should always be pruned in summer anyway to avoid the risk of silver leaf disease.
Everything you mentioned is exactly how I know the basics too Topbird. I made mistakes myself, using blunt secateurs or sawing off a branch while damaging another very close by, both resulting in some disease. These led to yet more pruning and some scolding from my father. I once sat with one of my friends on the lower branch of a peach. The branch broke, we fell and that was half of the tree gone in an instant. I don't dare mentioning what we got from my mother when she got home seeing us trying to get rid of the evidence with a saw.
But! That happened in the end of summer too. My father cut the branch off, which healed well and that very same tree is still standing, bearing fruit thirty years on.