My pruning guy just came and went. We decided that I need to get my trees way down in size. I need to be able to prune them standing on the ground! He recommended waiting until winter and then cutting them all back to 4 feet. Sounds good to me!

When I originally planted these 5+ years ago I tried to follow "Backyard Orchard Culture" directions for pruning to keep them small but it obviously didn't work.

Having these trees at my level will enable me to really get into them and prune and train the right way! I am excited.

Ginny

Ginny:

Sorry to hear of your frustration. Pruning trees can be that way. But with experience it gets much easier.

I think your goal of keeping the trees to 5ft is very tough. Eight ft would be much easier. My trees are planted 6ft by 8ft and I can keep them at 8ft tall by pruning about every 6 wks.

You may have a very vigorous soil and growing conditions. First do everything you can to slow the trees down. Water less and don't fertilize.

Waiting until winter to prune isn't going to help. I do 95% of my pruning during spring and summer. Summer pruning is a better way to limit growth than dormant.

If your trees are fruiting you can keep the size down by frequent pruning like I do and still get fruit. Somewhere between 5ft and 8ft you can draw the line and hold them there.

Don't give up. And do start doing the pruning yourself. Two or three yrs from now you can feel like you have things under control. But only if you learn to do it yourself. That's how I learned and now it seems easy.

Why don't you go out and do it right now. Now is a better time than this winter. It's not that big of a job. Seven trees I could do in a couple hours and that allows plenty of time to study each tree.

The Fruitnut

Dear Fruitnut,

You are always here to help us out and I do thank you!!

When he mentioned cutting all back to 4' I was thinking that with new growth we could keep it (and train it) to stay at 6 ft. I can reach 6'. I do have a long handled good pruner for heights above that, but I'd love to keep it low enough to be able to really see where I am making cuts.

If winter cuts cause alot of growth and vigor doesn't that just mean more pruning but wouldn't it also allow proper training which hasn't been done up until now?

He didn't want to prune today because if we go back to 4' too much foliage was going to be removed today.

For the 5 years since I planted these trees they have been spring and summer pruned probably 3 times each year. In spite of that they are too big. Obviously I wasn't pruning correctly. I did have what I think were good pruners do the pruning a few times. They were all recommended by a top certified arborist in the area.

Not sure what I'll do, the winter idea sounded good but now I'm not sure.

Thanks again,
Ginny

Ginny:

Don't be afraid to prune the daylights out of them. Go through before they go dormant for the season and whack them to 5' tall, and trim off any re-growth that happens before dormancy.

You cannot hurt a good tree. Do most of your major cuts in the summer, and the result will be a dwarfed tree. If you do major cuts in the winter, it will grow back vigorously and sucker really bad in the spring.

I used to be timid about it, worrying about perfect form, but I got fed up one August and whacked it straight across the top with terrible structure. The results were fantastic, and now I do that every late summer and fall, just doing maintenance pruning in the winter like dead or crossed branches. The worst that can happen is that you stress the tree, which equals fruit.

If in this process you expose large branches to the sun, paint them white to protect against sunburn. Try it with one tree first if you're still chicken.

There is no way I could have the variety of trees I have without summer pruning. Once you spank those bad boys a couple times, they behave!

Applenut

Ginny:

I agree with applenut, don't worry about perfect form. Even if you just cut every limb at 5ft, that will work. You can do a little better than that, probably as good as your pro. You will see what the tree does in response, which wood sets fruit and which doesn't, and next year you will do a better job.

Just go for it and learn how to do it yourself. You will also save some money.

The Fruitnut

I'm going to take pictures later today and post them here. I'd love it if you two would take a look at them and give me a final bit of advice after looking at them.

You are right in saying that I can probably do a better job than my pruning guy. I believe he is an educated pruner, not sure he's a specialist in fruit trees however. I have done so much reading, collecting of information, taken classes etc., over the years that I need to put that information to use, right or wrong. As you say I can learn from my mistakes.

Have a great day knowing that you are helping out someone in need of your advice and encouragement!!

Ginny

I'm so happy with the fruit trees that I have purchased as "dwarf" and jump at the chance to buy them, whenever I see one that I want to add to my small yard (getting crowded).

Also - some years ago, Jellyman suggested cutting out the central leader when planting - which I finally got up enough nerve to do.

At first I wasn't sure - especially about the "looks" of it. My first try was on a fig. It is now a perfect shape, - only 6 feet high, with side growth rather than vertical. I can easily reach the figs and it doesn't need any pruning.

Just my 2 c's.

Bejay

Good Morning friends!
A couple of questions. Assuming I want to be able to pick fruit and prune at a level comfortable for me, ie 6' max, do I cut my trees back to 5' or shorter?

The concern spoken by my pruner and I think to be the case, is that if I radically cut it back now it will lose 75% of the leaves on it. If I do this radical prune I could cross my fingers. I guess another idea would be to bring it back not quite so far leaving more foilage on. Unfortunately most of the leaves are on the top of the tree! I just read to avoid that as it shades the lower tree, which it did in my case.

I'm going to include a couple of pictures with comments. Would love any feedback you can give me. Wouldn't it be great if we/I knew of a program whereby you could put x's on my pic to advise me where to cut?

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I don't use Photobucket often, but when I do it's absolutely amazing I can make it work!!

The first picture is the nectarine tree with a plum on the right side.

The second picture was taken at the 5' mark. Do I just make cuts there and hope something sprouts? I could probably keep the two small branches that show although they aren't going in perfect directions.

The last picture shows how so much of the foilage is up top - way up top ie 8'!!

I can send more pics later, I've taken about 20 of them with the idea of sending them off.

Must run to a computer class so will check back later to see if anyone looked at these.

By the way, the computer class I'm going to is absolutely fabulous. Run by a national organization called SeniorNet. Highly recommend you look them up on the web.

Thanks again.
Ginny

Here is a link that might be useful: SeniorNet

Ginny:

Even if you cut off 75% of the leaves it will not kill a healthy tree. And it will send up sprouts, like as in too many. The reason you prune during the summer is to reduce the leaf area. All those leaves out there right now are pumping carbohydrates into the roots. So if you wait to prune this winter there will be plenty of fuel for rampant regrowth next spring. In fact it is already past the optimum pruning date.

My only concern is how do you get the trees down in size and still have an adequate crop next yr. The more gradually you do it, the more you will save of next yrs crop. But if you don't cut them back enough your goal may be immpossible. I won't just cut off the largest branches at 5ft. Rather I'd try to successively cut to save smaller branches as you go higher. With those branches pointing in the direction needed.

It's hard to tell where to cut from your pictures. I cann't tell how low the scaffold branches are. You cann't hold the tree to 5-6ft if the lowest branch is at 3-4ft, but you can if the scaffolds start at 18-24 inches.

Basically I'd go out now and remove at least 50%, maybe 75%, of the foliage while trying to save as much fruiting wood as possible. The fruiting wood should be strongest and in the best position possible.

You may have to sacrafice much of next yrs crop to get these trees under control at the height you want. Then you will need to summer prune every 6 wks. After a yr or two the tree will settle down some. Mine still need pruning 4-6 times a yr. But that is only a few hrs a yr.

The Fruitnut

You do not need to be above the tree to prune.
You could have a branch that is 10' tall and cut it at 4'. You certainly wouldn't need to get on a ladder to make the 4' cut just because the branch is 10'.

All the trees you mention except for the cherry, which you will probably kill doing what you want because they don't handle constant or heavy pruning well (and it sounds like you are going to cut a large central leader to make an open vase, which is why my old cherry tree split about 15 years after I had that idea), and the guava (which I just don't know about)
fruit on last year's wood.
Once you get your basic tree structure down your pruning will be replacing old branches when they get too big and heading back new branches to encourage fruiting and strength.

You can bend the branches down to do the heading back and the branch replacement will be done at whatever level you decide your fruiting branches will come from. That level could be radiating from a central leader or it could be a system of scaffolds.
I see a lot of overgrown "new wood" fruit trees and the reason is people didn't train them with the idea of branch replacement and to continue getting fruit they need to let the tree continue to get larger and larger.

Let's say you decide your base will be cut at 4' and you will allow the trees to go no more than 10'. If the trees grow 12" a year or you head them back so they grow no more than 12" a year that means you will be replacing branches every 6 years. I don't know about zone 9 but 6 years is not a unmanageable branch. If it is you could decide to replace every 4 or 5 year branch and have an 8'-9' tree.

If you are really stuck on having your trees only be 6' (which like I said above, there is no pruning reason to have to have them at head height to prune them since you will be removing well below the final height and can bend whips down to head them back) you would be cutting them off after every 2nd year.
I'm not sure your trees would go for that, they may decide they don't have enough tree compared to root to bother trying to populate and growing tree is more important. I have a McIntosh that hates being espaliered to 5' and it's always trying to grow more tree instead of getting heavy with fruit.
You may have to do some root pruning to make them satisfied with 6' of tree or do some other stress/extra dwarfing techniques to cause them to bear heavy so they don't have the energy to make more tree.

Ginny,
I was in your position 2.5 years ago. But, as Applenut and Fruitnut suggest, you just have to do it. I was scared to prune too, but I just decided to go for it and as the trees have matured (they really do grow fast), I've learned a lot. I've noticed some mistakes that I probably could have avoided if I had had been brave enough. But, I don't think I've committed any irrevocable errors (yet). The trees grow pretty fast and with that rapid growth comes opportunities to experiment, make mistakes, and learn.

All that said, I'm sure an expert could do better. But, I'm learning and from what I can tell, I'm not doing too badly.

Good luck!

Back to work tomorrow so have to let this for a day or so. Thank you all for your ideas! I'll try to get another picture up on Friday or Saturday. I did measure how far up the scaffold branches are and they are 16" which is good news I gather.

Happy Thursday!
Ginny

One other idea that may have merit - is to prune/plant your fruit trees - so that you prune/plant a dwarf - then next to it a standard, next a dwarf, etc.

In that way, you will be able to give better air circulation to your trees also, as the top growth and overhead shading will not conflict with one another.

Just my 2 c's.

Bejay

Ginny- I agree that keeping anything other than full on dwarf trees that short will be a battle. To keep a semi-dwarf tree that low, you've got have all your scaffolds, laterals whatever originate no more than two feet above ground level. The best way to do this is lop the trunk off at 2' just before leaf break in the spring when the tree has been in the ground for a year or two.. Then tie down the emerging branches with old milk jugs full of water. Pruning can be intimidating but you just have to jump in and do your best and learn. Plants are more forgiving than you might think. I prune standing on the ground to the height I can reach with the loppers. Nothing higher is left.

My trees have been pruned! I had a fruit tree expert out last week and with my permission, she made some big cuts to thin them out some and bring them down to 6' or less. She ended up taking off close to 50% of the foliage. I'm willing to take that risk. I do like the idea of doing it now as opposed to winter as was suggested by another pruner and not recommended by most of you.

Now the challenge will be to manage the spring growth and continue to learn learn learn!

Thanks for all your ideas. You are the BEST!

Ginny

I have 26 trees they are all dwarf. Just planted then this season. Mine are about 10 feet apart. Pruning should not be a big thing. Get some video tapes or books from the library on pruning. If your short, get an extension branch loper or a ladder.

Edible landscaping will be most important to feeding us in the troubled times ahead. Keep up the good work!