I question how much pruning off all the fruit would help. But I won't want too big a crop. What I do on three potted plants in my greenhouse is two fold. First I prune out some of the overly thick small branches. Then on the remaining branches I thin off some of the fruit. I allow the plants to flower and set until I think there is enough fruit already set. Then I remove all the flower clusters that follow. The clusters are easy to see and remove just before and during bloom. On three or four plants this isn't too much work. Your plants are probably smaller than mine. Keeping half a crop this yr might cost you a little crop next yr but it would be worth it to me. My only caution outdoors would be the chance of a late frost taking those early fruit right after you remove the late fruit. But you could reverse it and start taking off some of the early bloom and save the late. And speaking of frost, if you remove all the crop this yr, frost or something might take all of next yrs crop. Get some now while you can...that's my vote!! Perhaps I should point out that my bushes seem to overset. Yours might not, esp the first yr. On mine I think thinning gives larger sweeter fruit. The Fruitnut

Brandon, before I invest time in trying to find the bits and pieces of information I've picked up over the years, such as that peaches have been shown to increase in actual size after more aggressive pruning compared to less (because of less energy invested in fruit production), I'd like you to steer me to a single piece of research based on cutting back bearing wood on mature plants at transplanting as opposed to immature plants. Not that I'd be convinced if you found the research that it holds true for all species, because I feel certain it doesn't, but it will motivate me to go to the effort. It doesn't matter if wood stores energy if it doesn't share it with the roots. Check the literature for what you do with a spur-bound apple or pear tree. You cut back the spurs (sexually mature wood) to encourage vegetative (sexually immature) growth. I have the benefit of watching the results of the removal of such wood on a regular basis and it is a routine treatment of some of the trees I manage. You remove enough of the spur wood and the trees start growing more vigorously. Trees that have been declining in size have started growing again. The reason immature fruit trees grow proportionately faster than mature trees is because juvenile wood doesn't spare energy for fruit and flowers which is very expensive and it is well known that regardless of rootstock you can greatly control the size of most species of fruit trees by accelerating the beginning of fruit production. The greatest managment risk in commercially growing fully dwarf apples is having them fruit excessively when they are too small- they often permanently runt out. Plants runt out when inadequate energy is being sent to the roots. Vegetative wood generously feeds the roots while fruiting wood is very stingy. I transplant hundreds of bearing age fruit trees on semi-dwarfing rootstock annually, and one of my biggest problems is having peaches runt out- the treatment- aggressive pruning. It is also the way to get them to avoid the problem in the first place. I know that all, and I mean all, of Carl Whitcomb's research was based on work with a few species of very young plants, so I can't go there for researched information. Show me where to go, Brandon, for some actual research on mature plants and I'll continue this discussion, but as it stands, I just have seen too many instances where pruning back has stimulated growth on mature trees. As far as blueberry plants, I'm not so sure one way or the other. When I got out of hort-school I had all the confidence as you in the research I'd been stuffing my head with (and a good thing- it helped me disguise my inexperience). Actual experience has made me much more skeptical of sweeping assumptions based on very limited research. Much more comprehensive medical research than research we are discussing here is often contradicted by subsequent research. I'm sure this would happen more with hort research if it was pursued with similar aggression and funding.

I have six bushes, four that are 19 years old, two that are six. They are on a slope at the edge of the flatter "yard". They have always done extremely well for me. I try to keep the grass and weeds trimmed away, and once a year I pour on a dose of Miracid (my soil is already pretty acid here in southwest NH). I prune out anything broken in late winter, and the obviously shaggy barked old branches in the middle. First question: the four older ones are very woody, with the fruiting branches getting longer and longer. They are also getting very tall, especially the two Earliblues which top six feet easily. My soninlaw is just shy of six feet tall, and he is shorter than the big bushes. We had heavy rain last week, and the branches arched over just like some of my rose bushes, with the weight of foliage and fruit. Can I just whack back all the branches to say 4' when they are done fruiting? I thought that doing it in August would give the plant time to set up new growth to strengthen the roots before winter. Second question, the setup: I used to cover them with old tobacco netting that my mother gave me, but that eventually disintegrated. The last year that I had enough to cover the four larger bushes, I had forty quarts. Without covering, I get to enjoy the cardinal and bluejays... So, a friend spoke to a local man for me, who makes aluminum frames for greenhouses. The suggestion is that he put sleeves in the ground, into which adjustable uprights will go. That way we can account for the slope. The uprights are connected with aluminum cross lines, and the whole thing is covered with greenhouse cloth to keep out birds but let in enough sun for ripening. He suggests a butterfly door in an aluminum frame as well. The door comes off, the cloth comes down after berry season for storage. He says I can leave the frame up year round. The question: does this sound feasible? I know it may not be economically justifiable, but my daughters grew up picking berries under my mother's woodensupported tobacco netting berry house, and I want my granddaughters to have the same experience. The four year old is already a good clean picker. There is something magical about going into a tent to pick berries... I appreciate your thoughts.

The latest research shows that the best time to prune roses in California is during the summer growing season. Contrary to conventional wisdom and popular belief. Roses should be pruned as you would any flowering shrub. After each flush of bloom, prune out the spent flowering canes and skinny canes back to where they're larger than a finger. If you do this after each flush of bloom, you won't have a bunch of scraggly canes that need serious doctoring come winter. And we don't prune back roses, at any time, to short nubbins. That's a practice that evolved back east and in the midwest where winter cold and snows forced rose gardeners to cut their roses back hard so that they could cover them with piles of mulch and burlap and god-knows-what-all-else. We don't need to do that. Again, prune roses just back to good finger-size canes, usually pruning roses no more than 1/3 to 1/2 depending on their vigor. We should have BIG rose BUSHES, just as we have big BUSHES. Also, the fact is that in most of California, our roses don't actually go fully dormant. We read about this in gardening magazines every year -- "ways to make your roses go dormant" (cut off water, fertilizer, leave the hips on, etc.). If you know about the genetics of modern roses, you know that one of the primary parents is Rosa chinensis. And R. chinensis is a subtropical to tropical species that is pretty much evergreen in the wild. But there's a reality here: you've asked your question because you probably haven't done your summer pruning as noted above and you're ready to go in and do some winter "dormant" pruning of all that scraggliness. If you can't find a good calendar for pruning for your area (it varies), simply watch your rose bushes. As soon as you see even the slightest bit of bud swelling and/or new growth, have at it. Just be careful. Joe