Pruning Made Easy
Guide to pruning procedures made easy, including removing a large branch, pruning fruit plants, deciduous bushes, hedges and trees.
by Lee Reich
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Do you nip with caution when pruning a plants Or do you
ruthlessly attack? No matter what approach you take,
sometimes you just have to prune your plants. Here are the
most basic pruning principles to follow for fruit-producing
plants, other deciduous trees and shrubs, and evergreens.
Removing a Large Branch
Use sharp tools no matter what type of plant you're
pruning. Sharp tools make cleaner cuts that heal more
quickly. Make cuts on an angle and just above a node, where
the leaf attaches to the stem.
If you want to encourage branching, use heading cuts to
shorten existing stems. If you want to open an area to
light and air, use thinning cuts to completely remove some
stems.
On any plant, if you find stems or branches that are dead,
diseased or damaged, always cut them down to healthy
tissue. That said, let's move on to pruning guidelines for
various categories of plants.
PRUNING FRUIT PLANTS
Pruning is most critical for fruit plants. Young fruit
trees need a strong framework on which to hang their fruits
and to ensure their branches bask in plenty of
sugar-producing sunlight. Pruning fruit plants lessens
disease problems and, by removing some fruits, pumps more
flavor and size into those that remain. With few
exceptions, prune fruit plants while they are dormant.
With a young fruit tree, preserve branches that are 6
inches apart and that make wide angles with the trunk. If
the tree is initially a single stem, at planting, cut back
that stem to 2 to 3 feet above ground level, then select
side branches as the plant grows.
If the tree already has branches, save those that are
wide-angled and in good positions, but remove all others.
Shorten those you save to a few inches.
Do no more pruning on a young tree than is absolutely
needed or you will delay fruiting.
Mature fruit trees need annual pruning. The amount to
remove depends on the size of the particular fruit and the
bearing habit of the tree. Cherries, for instance, are
small and are borne on older stems, so the plants need
little pruning. Peaches, in contrast, are large and are
borne only on 1-year-old wood, so they need severe annual
pruning to thin fruits and stimulate new shoots that can
bear the following year's crop.
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