Pruning your trees

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Once the leaves have fallen in late autumn/early winter, take the opportunity to get in there to remove any congested growth. For some fruit trees, however, the time to do any real pruning and cutting back is not that time of year but much earlier or somewhat later.

Trees of the prunus species, cherries, plums, damsons, and related, should be pruned – pardon the almost pun – while the sap is rising, after they have flowered. While that may reduce any fruit production for that year it is r4eckoned to reduce the risk of any infection entering the tree.

Apple trees have a very narrow window, so to speak, in which pruning should take place and that is about from mid to late January to the end of February (in Europe at least). Others can be pruned more or less immediately after the leaves have all fallen off and this also goes for the majority of ornamental shrubs and trees.

© 2017