I have a damson (and, dammit, I always misspell that damnson and
have to correct!) and a small apple that badly need severe pruning
to reshape them. Obviously, that will lose a year's fruit, but my
question is when is the best time - and it's probably different.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On 01/09/2011 18:28, wrote:
I have a damson (and, dammit, I always misspell that damnson and
have to correct!) and a small apple that badly need severe pruning
to reshape them. Obviously, that will lose a year's fruit, but my
question is when is the best time - and it's probably different.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.


Hi Nick.

You're quite right, they should be pruned at different times.

The damson is a prunus sp., so needs to be pruned in warm, dry weather
from April onwards. This is because the wounds heal more quickly in good
dry weather, so are less likely to succumb to Silver Leaf disease. Now
may be a bit late, but I must confess to pruning a few bits off my plum
today since the weather was good.

The apple - I'm assuming it's a standard tree - should be pruned in
winter whilst dormant.

Summer pruning is usual for *trained* (espalier, cordon, etc) apples.
The intention is to limit the growth so the fruiting branches can be
kept to a tight framework.

To make it very simple: winter pruning apples encourages growth,
summer pruning apples controls growth.

From your post, it sounds as if your apple is a small standard tree,
ergo winter pruning is approriate.

--
Spider
from high ground in SE London
gardening on clay

In article ,
Spider wrote:

The damson is a prunus sp., so needs to be pruned in warm, dry weather
from April onwards. This is because the wounds heal more quickly in good
dry weather, so are less likely to succumb to Silver Leaf disease. Now
may be a bit late, but I must confess to pruning a few bits off my plum
today since the weather was good.

Yes, but when? The point is that it has to be pretty drastic,
because the tree has got out of control and there are a lot of
long, spindly branches. My inclination is after it has flowered,
though the other possibility is to pick the fruit and do it now.

To make it very simple: winter pruning apples encourages growth,
summer pruning apples controls growth.

That was the problem :-( I did that, but it didn't respond at
all according to the books (or sanity), and has now got completely
out of shape. Some of this is because it is on a damned modern
dwarfing rootstock, and they always cause misbehaviour, but its
behaviour was truly weird. It has never responded to winter
pruning by new growth, has responded to summer pruning that way,
and is very reluctant to make ANY new growth except at the end
of the longest branches. So what I am planning is a short back
and sides, in the hope that hitting it hard will stimulate it
into behaving more as expected.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On 01/09/2011 22:36, wrote:
In ,
wrote:

The damson is a prunus sp., so needs to be pruned in warm, dry weather
from April onwards. This is because the wounds heal more quickly in good
dry weather, so are less likely to succumb to Silver Leaf disease. Now
may be a bit late, but I must confess to pruning a few bits off my plum
today since the weather was good.

Yes, but when? The point is that it has to be pretty drastic,
because the tree has got out of control and there are a lot of
long, spindly branches. My inclination is after it has flowered,
though the other possibility is to pick the fruit and do it now.

You are only supposed to prune plums in good dry weather when they are
growing fairly vigorously. I'd have thought just after flowering would
be too early to be certain of suitable warm dry conditions. We don't
prune our neighbours plum tree at all unless there is a damaged branch
and it seems to stay almost the same size - limited by its rootstock.

They seem to grow to a particular size and then slow down a lot.

To make it very simple: winter pruning apples encourages growth,
summer pruning apples controls growth.

That was the problem :-( I did that, but it didn't respond at
all according to the books (or sanity), and has now got completely
out of shape. Some of this is because it is on a damned modern
dwarfing rootstock, and they always cause misbehaviour, but its
behaviour was truly weird. It has never responded to winter
pruning by new growth, has responded to summer pruning that way,
and is very reluctant to make ANY new growth except at the end
of the longest branches. So what I am planning is a short back
and sides, in the hope that hitting it hard will stimulate it
into behaving more as expected.

I'd be inclined to do it a third of the thinnest back hard, open up the
centre, one third back to half length or 3/4s if nice ones and strongest
branches left as is. Then next year you have to bite the bullet and chop
back the by then very long strong stems by an appropriate amount but
with any luck the moderate ones will be a good size again and you can
pick which new growth to leave on.

If you do short back and sides all at once the tree is inclined to
respond by lots of soft sappy growth mostly going straight upwards. You
are also unlikely to get fruit at all if you massacre it.

Splitting the hard pruning across summer and winter might help prevent
any branches that get really out of hand from damaging the tree. And
also gives you more bites at the cherry. I only winter prune my fruit
trees and try not to let them go wild with non-fruiting growth.

BTW Family trees are even more entertaining to keep balanced. The under
stock is almost always more vigorous than the top stock and will if left
to its own devices take over the bulk of the tree.

Incidentally does anyone have any tips for renovating a 100 year old
peach tree with peach leaf curl and some fungus that affects the fruit?
The fruit looked fine but the flesh inside was no good
(belongs to a newly renovated walled garden not far from where I live)

I am advocating a copper fungicide end of season and at flowering with a
ruthless clearing of all its dead leaves. The historic fruit society
apparently told the owners to grub it up as beyond redemption!

Regards,
Martin Brown

In article ,
Martin Brown wrote:

You are only supposed to prune plums in good dry weather when they are
growing fairly vigorously. I'd have thought just after flowering would
be too early to be certain of suitable warm dry conditions. We don't
prune our neighbours plum tree at all unless there is a damaged branch
and it seems to stay almost the same size - limited by its rootstock.

They seem to grow to a particular size and then slow down a lot.

That one is complicated, and a lot of the problem is that it is in
a rather shaded position. But it is obstructing a path, among
other things.

[ Aberrant apple ]

I'd be inclined to do it a third of the thinnest back hard, open up the
centre, one third back to half length or 3/4s if nice ones and strongest
branches left as is. Then next year you have to bite the bullet and chop
back the by then very long strong stems by an appropriate amount but
with any luck the moderate ones will be a good size again and you can
pick which new growth to leave on.

If you do short back and sides all at once the tree is inclined to
respond by lots of soft sappy growth mostly going straight upwards. You
are also unlikely to get fruit at all if you massacre it.

That is very much what I want to encourage! The problem is that
it has (despite repeated attempts to prune back) developed a single
strong branch out to one side. Inter alia, it could easily break
when in fruit unless I thin very hard indeed. I need to get it
to grow in a more upright way.

Oh, and the strong branch is to the NORTH, so it's not a sunlight
effect!


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On 02/09/2011 09:08, wrote:
In ,
Martin wrote:

[ Aberrant apple ]

I'd be inclined to do it a third of the thinnest back hard, open up the
centre, one third back to half length or 3/4s if nice ones and strongest
branches left as is. Then next year you have to bite the bullet and chop
back the by then very long strong stems by an appropriate amount but
with any luck the moderate ones will be a good size again and you can
pick which new growth to leave on.

If you do short back and sides all at once the tree is inclined to
respond by lots of soft sappy growth mostly going straight upwards. You
are also unlikely to get fruit at all if you massacre it.

That is very much what I want to encourage! The problem is that
it has (despite repeated attempts to prune back) developed a single
strong branch out to one side. Inter alia, it could easily break
when in fruit unless I thin very hard indeed. I need to get it
to grow in a more upright way.

You could always take the Japanese approach and install a stout support
with a rubber tyre cushion to take some of the weight underneath the
errant branch during summer fruiting.

Oh, and the strong branch is to the NORTH, so it's not a sunlight
effect!

I'm not so sure. Now you say this I have a large long established
Bramley apple tree that had been allowed to go its own way by the
previous owner and its main stem chose North East and horizontal about 3
feet off the ground. The tree is still a bit unbalanced even now.

I rebalanced it gradually by consistently cutting back both sides, but
taking all of the weak growth off the side I wanted to grow stronger.
This seemed to work and eventually a balancing branch grew strong enough
that the tree is now approximately in balance. Lopping the main stem
back just encouraged a lot more strong growth from the cut end.

Regards,
Martin Brown

On 01/09/2011 22:36, wrote:
In ,
wrote:

The damson is a prunus sp., so needs to be pruned in warm, dry weather
from April onwards. This is because the wounds heal more quickly in good
dry weather, so are less likely to succumb to Silver Leaf disease. Now
may be a bit late, but I must confess to pruning a few bits off my plum
today since the weather was good.

Yes, but when? The point is that it has to be pretty drastic,
because the tree has got out of control and there are a lot of
long, spindly branches. My inclination is after it has flowered,
though the other possibility is to pick the fruit and do it now.


If it really is that bad, then yes, choose a sunny day and do it as soon
as possible. If you don't, then winter winds will snap the branches and
Silver Leaf will enter the wounds anyway. With my old Victoria plum
tree, I often used a good day to cut back soft extension growth to a
couple of buds beyond the point where fruit was attached, doing the job
any time in summer once I could see the swelling fruit. This kept the
tree relatively compact and manageable. Be wary of doing it *just*
after flowering, as you may harm the embryo fruits, but once 'June drop'
is over you'll probably have the weather as well as the opportunity.



To make it very simple: winter pruning apples encourages growth,
summer pruning apples controls growth.

That was the problem :-( I did that, but it didn't respond at
all according to the books (or sanity), and has now got completely
out of shape. Some of this is because it is on a damned modern
dwarfing rootstock, and they always cause misbehaviour, but its
behaviour was truly weird. It has never responded to winter
pruning by new growth, has responded to summer pruning that way,
and is very reluctant to make ANY new growth except at the end
of the longest branches. So what I am planning is a short back
and sides, in the hope that hitting it hard will stimulate it
into behaving more as expected.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.


Oh dear! That sounds like a very confused tree .. and it's owner:~(. I
can only suppose that the summer growth spurts you're seeing are delayed
responses to your winter pruning. Is it feasible to shorten these
growths to create fruiting wood? What isn't clear is whether your apple
is tip-bearing or spur-bearing, and this may be part of the trouble.
Depending on how desperate you are and how misshapen the tree is, it
might be an idea to spread your drastic lopping over 2 or 3 years, just
to see how the wood responds.

--
Spider
from high ground in SE London
gardening on clay

In article ,
Spider wrote:

If it really is that bad, then yes, choose a sunny day and do it as soon
as possible. If you don't, then winter winds will snap the branches and
Silver Leaf will enter the wounds anyway. ...

If it were right out in the open, then that would be a problem.
But it wouldn't have got like that if it were! It can wait, but
badly needs reshaping.

Oh dear! That sounds like a very confused tree .. and it's owner:~(. I

Yes :-(

can only suppose that the summer growth spurts you're seeing are delayed
responses to your winter pruning. Is it feasible to shorten these
growths to create fruiting wood? What isn't clear is whether your apple
is tip-bearing or spur-bearing, and this may be part of the trouble.
Depending on how desperate you are and how misshapen the tree is, it
might be an idea to spread your drastic lopping over 2 or 3 years, just
to see how the wood responds.

It's spur-bearing. I have tried the staged pruning, and it hasn't
worked. The killer is that it's never been very vigorous (which
surely must the the rootstock), and seems INCREDIBLY reluctant to
form more than one strong new growth a year. Given that it has
almost always been precisely where it is least appropriate, I have
been in a quandary ....

Hence I need a new tack.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On 03/09/2011 07:11, wrote:
In ,
wrote:

If it really is that bad, then yes, choose a sunny day and do it as soon
as possible. If you don't, then winter winds will snap the branches and
Silver Leaf will enter the wounds anyway. ...

If it were right out in the open, then that would be a problem.
But it wouldn't have got like that if it were! It can wait, but
badly needs reshaping.


If you've got good, dry weather this weekend [I have;~))!], then why not
make a start? Even in a sheltered position, heavy snow fall could snap
the longer, weaker branches. If not, assess the branch structure over
winter and plan your cuts for late spring/summer.




Oh dear! That sounds like a very confused tree .. and it's owner:~(. I

Yes :-(

can only suppose that the summer growth spurts you're seeing are delayed
responses to your winter pruning. Is it feasible to shorten these
growths to create fruiting wood? What isn't clear is whether your apple
is tip-bearing or spur-bearing, and this may be part of the trouble.
Depending on how desperate you are and how misshapen the tree is, it
might be an idea to spread your drastic lopping over 2 or 3 years, just
to see how the wood responds.

It's spur-bearing. I have tried the staged pruning, and it hasn't
worked. The killer is that it's never been very vigorous (which
surely must the the rootstock), and seems INCREDIBLY reluctant to
form more than one strong new growth a year. Given that it has
almost always been precisely where it is least appropriate, I have
been in a quandary ....

Hence I need a new tack.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.


What a mess! It sounds more like the sort of tree one would use for
espalier training, where you could allow longish low growth which could
then be tied in, allowing you better management of the pruning spurs.
For a productive standard tree, it seems to be on either too restricting
a rootstock or, maybe, the rootstock is damaged. Since you can't do
anything pruning-wise at the moment, it may help to give a goodly dose
of bonemeal to strengthen the roots.

If it were my tree, I think I would still go for the winter pruning,
followed by growth-promoting fertiliser and plenty of water. If I were
a real tree expert (and, indeed, if you felt confident enough), I might
suggest the nicking/notching approach to raise some strategic branch
growth. However, that doesn't seem to be the case:~(, so try the root
feeding and winter pruning. How drastic you are is up to you, but I'd
still suggest a 2-3 year approach.

--
Spider
from high ground in SE London
gardening on clay

In article ,
Spider wrote:

If you've got good, dry weather this weekend [I have;~))!], then why not
make a start? Even in a sheltered position, heavy snow fall could snap
the longer, weaker branches. If not, assess the branch structure over
winter and plan your cuts for late spring/summer.

I have and I have. Let's see how it goes. I wanted an upright,
but upright/drooping is not a characteristic that I could find
out when I bought it. I have another that IS upright - very!

What a mess! It sounds more like the sort of tree one would use for
espalier training, where you could allow longish low growth which could
then be tied in, allowing you better management of the pruning spurs.

Except for its refusal to have more than one actively growing branch!
Someone more versed in the ways of dwarfing rootstocks might have
avoided the mess, but it's the only one I have ever owned or worked on.

I will do something this winter, and decide what when I do it!


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.