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Fruit tree pruning - Spring or Winter, where are we?
Emma915
Posts: 95
in Fruit & veg
I understand that meteorologically spring starts on 20th March. Having searched google, internet says the same.
I was led to believe that pruning apple/pear trees is done in spring however I'm also given advice to prune in winter but avoid early Spring (and to prune in summer). I've decided to hold off for now, the trees do not desperately need pruning but I like to keep on top of it.
In the gardening world, when should we class the season as spring and are we still classed as winter? This is difficult to judge when seeing all the daffodils, primroses, crocuses etc in bloom already.
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Good thread. It reminded me that I have to prune my apple tree at the end of the month. Where I live, March or early April is the time for it.
Emma I think Verdun has it covered really.
Thank you. So I need to find out whether they are spur or tip bearing. Unfortunately the majority of plants in my garden are inherited so I have no idea of species. Some I presume are meant to be cordons/espaliers that have got out of shape, I presume due to lack of maintenance during my grandfathers illness and subsequent passing. The pear is a regular pear tree, I presume from previous fruit similar to conference although we did not have fruit last year. Time for a bit of reading...
Spur bearers are the more common, but if you know the varieties you will be able to find out, if you are not sure & you get fruit there are Apple days run in Autumn take some fruit with you and the experts there should be able to identify them for you. I think the reason that GW magazine runs an almost constant feature on pruning is because this is still one of the things most gardereners have problems with, so you are not alone.
Emma, you can bring espaliers and cordons back into shape if they've been neglected, but it may take several years' pruning to do so, because if you remove a lot of branches at once, the tree responds by producing masses of new shoots. I'm trying to re-shape espalier apples in a community garden in my town, and I spend a lot of time scratching my head... I'm reckoning to do some major pruning now, before they come into leaf, in the hope they produce new shoots which I can train into new branches for the espaliers. In August (I'm in the north) I'll summer prune too, so that the existing framework remains fruitful.
Yes, flat trained against a wall, until maybe 3 years ago when the pruning lady fell ill and wasn't replaced. The trees aren't mine (it's a "free fruit & veg for the community" project) so I have to try to resurrect them if possible. The apical growth has been allowed to dominate, so I'm aiming to curb this upright growth and encourage the existing flat-trained branches to thicken up and become more fruitful. I'm hoping to encourage more sideways-facing buds on the main stem to shoot, and therefore provide some more potential espalier branches.
I saw a video on Youtube of an experienced "fruit man" in America pruning overgrown espalier apples, which gave me hope it was possible. We shall see...