These don't help anything, and they're more likely to break when loaded with fruit.Īn addition to the tools he lists there, you might also consider a pole pruner. The general pruning advice given in Mike Perry's answer is good, though I'd recommend removing any downward-facing branches. It looks like you have a few lateral branches that have done exactly this.) If you don't prune it all off, it will just keep growing with several extra small branches pointed in that direction, and they'll interfere with the scaffold branch. Don't just cut it back to 3' long, cut it back where it comes out of the trunk. (Using the scaffold example mentioned above, imagine that there's an extra lateral branch pointing northeast at 6' high, and it's 5' long. When you do have to remove lateral branches, cut them back to the trunk. If you are trying to control the height, you can cut back the central leader to just above the top scaffold. I just picked 6' and 10' out of the air - use what works for your tree.) (Imagine that you have four scaffold branches at a height of 6' pointing north-south-east-west, and then another four main branches at a height of 10'. There should be about 4-6 distributed evenly around the tree, about 4' in height vertically from one scaffold to the next. Your goal should be to establish "scaffold" branches (these are the main, roughly horizontal branches). It's best to do it in early/mid summer so that the new growth has a chance to harden off before winter. Just don't prune too late in the season - since any pruning will stimulate growth, you don't want fresh green growth to be exposed to winter chill. The dormant season pruning will stimulate more vigorous growth, when your goal should be instead to open the tree up to let more light in. In your circumstance, you want to do a summer pruning rather than a winter (dormant season) pruning. (I say this more for understanding than for anything you can do about it, short of cutting down some of the competition.) This could cause some of the vigorous vertical growth that you see - it's trying to get up into the sun. If you are fertilizing this tree, I'd recommend that you stop, it doesn't seem to need any more!įrom what I can tell from the photos, it looks like this tree doesn't get full sun - it looks like there are other trees that might be slightly shading it.
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