Yes, that's the one H-man wrote that I was referring to, and the other one, which he provided also, is linked below. Reading them together (along with some outside study of my trees) made the difference for me. I could almost see a little light bulb glowing above me! Until now I've followed a kind of mechanistic approach to heading back here, thinning there, opening up the tree and trying to encourage/discourage branches as seemed appropriate. OK as far as it goes, but what the two guides together taught me was to think in terms of "crops" of one, two, and three year wood. In a sense I'm not growing apples or pears; I'm growing a crop of apple pencils, which are the two next year's fruit-bearing wood, and as the years go way I'll have to remove the old wood to make room for the new. Alan's "Pruning by Numbers" helped me on questions I had about carbohydrate transport and storage too, but it'll take me longer to apply those intelligently. Which brings me to an apology. I'm going on as if Harvestman is the only person who has taught me anything here, and that's just not the case. In fact, it's the conversations between the several very well-informed, professional, committed experts that are my most important sources. But if I start listing people I'm going to overlook somebody who helped me last month or last year but who isn't speaking to my obsession of the moment. I don't want to do that. I also don't want to inadvertently "rank" everybody. So I want to just say "Thanks" as I go, "Thanks" in particular when I clear a particular hurdle, and "Thanks" to everybody here who helps make this such a friendly and collegial board. Thanks. :-)M Here is a link that might be useful: Good Fruit Grower 1-2-3 guide

Lind, if you want a low, wide tree for easy picking then I agree open center is the best. I use open center on all my more widely spaced trees, whatever kind of tree it is. The way to conceive of the open center is its like a bowl of leaves, all the leaves are concentrated in a bowl-like shape and so all the leaves get good sun since there are not many leaves above or below the "bowl". Of course this is just an idealization, but its the root of getting good sun on your open center tree -- imagine the bowl, and remove too-high and too-low branches. The bowl ends up being several feet thick, and it will very from this ideal in many cases due to the way the scaffolds are going. My latest favorite link is the one below, it shows a peach pruned to open center. Its more like a plate than a bowl, thats even better but is harder to pull off. In terms of details of how to prune, that is a very complex topic. I would spend several hours reading every on-line description from the various states and watching youtube videos until you start to get a sense of things a bit better. Pictures that show actual trees evolving over the years are the most helpful, but those are pretty hard to come by. Pruning was by far the hardest thing for me to learn, grafting is much easier. Scott Here is a link that might be useful: NCSU peach pruning

With HMan's permission, here is a copy for public consumption. I have made an HTML link for browser use, plus two Microsoft word links with which you can download the file in either the newer .docx format or the older (1997-2003) .doc format. You can use the right-mouse-click then "Save Link As" or "Save Target As" menu option. HTML MS Word Docx MS Word Doc

This refers to after the blooms have faded and the main flush is over. Where to cut is different for different plants. Some you cut down to the basal growth. Others are cut along the stem to where there are new flower buds forming. For clematis you can cut the stem to one third to one half its length.