A Stroll Through the Garden: The art of pruning

This past week I was at the pool and one of my friends told me about how he was going to invite a number of his friends to come over and begin pruning some of his orchard. Pruning, getting up and down ladders, and carrying branches around are not as easy as you might hope as you get older. He asked me for a few suggestions as he was to give them a few lessons so that they don’t create more problems than they can solve.

The first time I pruned anything I was 13 or 14. My family had taken one of our normal trips to visit my grandma up in Amherstburg, Ontario. It was a warm spring morning. Grandma had a hedge that was not a favorite of anyone, but it was there to stop kids from making a shortcut through her yard.

I remember that she had so many kids cutting through her yard that they had made a path on her lawn; there was no grass growing along the path. It was a popular shortcut. My grandma was smart and using the switch for bad kids was still used. Her plan was to grow a hedge that would slow down kids from cutting through the yard.

This warm spring morning had me bundling up in a heavy fabric jacket with leather gloves and two types of shears. I carried a hedge trimmer and a pruner that looked close to scissors. Both were serious pieces of equipment. I was ready to answer grandma’s call. Grandma said she knew that I could prune her hedge, and I loved her so much I would do it for her. No money involved.

What I faced was a hedge of barberries that have left their thorns in my memory for over 55 years. These barberries were an older cultivar that would eventually grow to 6 feet tall. This was also why I would stay with grandma early in the summer for a week to help her as much as I could. I tried to get most of the pruning done that I could do early in the day and cared for these awful plants. I usually finished the work in three to four days, but when I got done grandma always rewarded me with some pie and we would go on a trip somewhere. Great time with grandma.

Some keys to proper pruning

One of the pruning teachers that I had a few years ago started out with one interesting guide for knowing when to stop pruning. He said if you can throw a cat through the tree where once there were a lot of leaves and the cat did not hit anything, you know that you have done a good job. We all laughed, but there is a lot of truth to one of the important ideas that we see with this concept. A fruit tree needs to have sunshine on the fruit to develop properly.

When many leaves are on a fruit tree, the chance of developing scab is increased. That's because when the leaves are thick there is poor air circulation and mold grows. Simply pruning is manipulating a plant’s growth, shape and productivity by cutting and training it to achieve what you want to happen in the plant. There are many different reasons for pruning plants during different stages of life. To prune plants well is not so much about knowing how and where to cut but about knowing what you’re trying to achieve.

My friend was talking about pruning apple trees that you are trying to encourage to grow fruit. Most pruning to encourage fruit is done in late winter to early spring. Apples I have done in March and April. We shape the existing apple tree into a trellis-like pyramid or fruiting wall as you might look at the tree. Shape the tree so that you open the tree up, and longer branches that are more horizontal at the base. Continue up the tree and the branches become shorter going to the trained leader.

The more you train the leader, the stronger the branches become. Any branches stronger than the leader need to be removed so it does not compete with the leader. Each branch that you choose as a part of the scaffold for the trellis should be at 45–60-degree angles. To allow for the best airflow, remove all branches that are not a part of the scaffold. You need to allow 2 to 2½ feet between each scaffold.

With this more open approach, you should be able to harvest your apples more easily. As you prune, keep in mind that you need to remove diseased, dead, weak and old branches. Apples come on branches that are from 3-5 years old. We also need to identify flower buds versus leaf buds. Leaf buds contain the leaves you will see and are flat. Flower buds, as you might guess, are round and contain the flowers and then the fruit.

For a more open tree, focus on removing more leaf buds than flower buds. Remember that the fruit closer to the top will be exposed to more of the sun, maybe sweeter, and maybe more exposed to sun scald. There is much more to pruning and tree care than what we are going to be able to talk about here.

Hope you have a great stroll through your indoor and outdoor gardens this week. If you find that you have any issues, drop me an email at ericlarson546@yahoo.com. I shall do the best I can to help. This column I hope to make into a blog soon and put it on my website ohiohealthyfoodcooperative.org. Thank you for participating in our column.

Eric Larson of Jeromesville is a veteran landscaper and gardening enthusiast and a founding board member of the Ohio Chapter of Association of Professional Landscape Designers.

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Pruning trees properly can promote fruit production