Trapper:

I wouldn't say your trees are seriously overgrown; in fact they may be a little spindly for trees going into their 4th leaf. Of course, growth rate may be controlled by rootstock type, and I doubt you know that if you are not even sure of the type and variety.

I would wait to prune those trees in late summer, but in the meantime you may want to become a terrified branch spreader before a pruner. The cherry tree (No. 2) seems to be going almost entirely vertical, and the three scaffolds could benefit from branch spreading beginning soon or now, but pull the branches down gradually in stages or they may snap off.

Near the end of next summer you can re-assess the trees, and reduce branches to a more reasonable length. Spreading branches will help to reduce vigor, improve fruiting, and keep height of the trees down so you can easily thin, pick, and spray if necessary.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Prune in summer? Now that goes against everything I've read online....why summer? Thanks so much for your assessment, branch spreading isnt near as terrifying as pruning!

Hi Jellyman-
Good to have you back... we missed you for a little while there...

Hi YoleTrapper-

First of all, I'm a pruning newbie myself, so don't take anything I say too seriously... Also, when it comes to fruit, Don is one of the most knowledgeable people here, so you're in good hands.
The typical advice I here here, especially to newer growers, is that the right time to prune is when you have the pruners in your hand. Often newbies get so hung up on when to prune, and when the time finally comes, they feel ill-prepared, forget, or they chicken out. It's actually better just to do the pruning whenever you get to it than to run the risk of not doing it at all. You'll make some mistakes, but then you'll see how the tree reacts and learn from it. Nobody is an expert the first day.

In general, with dormant pruning (in the winter), the tree often doesn't notice the pruning at all. It goes on it's merry way like it never even happened. With summer pruning, it can often stimulate a good amount of growth at that spot. Since Don commented on your trees being a bit spindly, he may have been trying to stimulate the trees a little bit. (that's just my speculation though). But again, some would argue that it's more important that you simple do the pruning than get hung up on when it's done.

Also, in regards to "...everything I've read online", keep in mind, to a certain extent, especially when it comes to gardening, it seems for every bit of advice going one way, there's another bit of advice going another way. You've got to understand your source very closely. Sometimes conflicting advice is simply because with gardening, differences in location can mean very different courses of action are the appropriate ones.

There a lot of good videos on YouTube for pruning fruit trees. They say a pic is worth a thousand words, and I think a video is worth many times more. I would start by spending a good amount of time watching a lot of them, and then come back and ask some more questions. Speaking of that... I think I'll do the same. Last dormant pruning season was 300 days ago and I could use a refresher course. :-)

Best regards,
-Glenn

Dormant season pruning encourages leafy, succulent growth the following season. Heavy pruning (especially in the dormant period) can result in a flush of watersprouts.

Late summer pruning produces less vigorous regrowth and encourages the formation of fruiting wood.

Espaliers have always been maintained primarily with summer pruning because it's considered more dwarfing and as B7 mentions more conducive to the production of fruiting wood.

Interestingly, research by David Ferree contradicts the assumption that summer pruning is more dwarfing than winter pruning. I have to say that this research contradicts my experience, however, and Ferree's research is probably with fully dwarfing rootstocks. I manage a lot of full sized apple trees with summer pruning only.

I disaggree with Don about summer pruning young trees that haven't sized up yet because, in spite of Ferree's research with dwarf apples, I contiune to agree with B7 that summer pruning is more dwarfing than dormant pruning with most trees, most rootstocks. I mostly pinch back growth of young trees during the growing season to stear them so I don't have to take off so much wood in the winter.

I think that Don is OK with summer pruning becuase he's no longer in a hurry to size up his trees but he's never actually explained his motivation that I've read.

The photographed trees are structually really screwed up, so you can either work with what you have or completely try to start over. The trees have narrow crotches with codominant leaders that will later be subject to breakage.

I'd work with what I have by choosing one branch to lead vertically and gradually cutting back the competing branches and spreading them as Don suggests. For this, summer pruning is perfect.

If you are going for an open center trees you can cut off the leader of each tree a few years down the road. By then the lower branches will have strengthened their unions with the trunk because the central leader will have outgrown the others.