Page 26 - Brandon Sun - Your Home your Way (2019)

26 THE BRANDON SUN • YOUR HOME YOUR WAY • THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2019

Keep trees healthy

with regular pruning

If there’s one group of tree depends not only on your
plants that cries out for reg- whims, but also on the plant’s
ular and careful pruning, it’s natural growth habit.
fruit trees.
Taste the sweetness of GET YOUR TREE IN SHAPE
a perfectly ripe pear: That
sweetness represents energy, Begin pruning any new
and that energy comes from tree by cutting back broken
sunlight. With proper prun- stems and dead or diseased
ing, all the limbs of a fruit tree wood to healthy tissue. If your
bask in sunshine. new tree is but a single stem
Pruning also helps these (called a “whip” by nurser-
trees strike a balance be- ies), shorten it by one-third
tween shoot growth and fruit to promote branching. If it is
production, so important in already branched (the “feath-
making sure they bear large, ered tree” of nurseries), save
luscious fruits year after year. well-placed stems and com-
Those shoots are needed for pletely cut away all others.
energy-producing leaves and The ideal branching ar-
for places on which fruits rangement starts about half Apples bear fruits on long-lived, stubby spurs of their trees, but even these
hang. a metre (two feet) from the must be pruned eventually to stimulate younger, new spurs and keep them
ground and continues in a spi-
THE YOUNG TREE ral arrangement up the trunk from overcrowding. (The Associated Press)
The first years are im- with about 20 centimetres (8 how big its fruits are. more stems need to be short-
inches) between branches. In
portant to a fruit tree’s fu- the case of the open-centre Especially with large ened.
ture performance. These are tree, lop off the central stem fruits, such as apple and At one extreme are peach
the years to help your tree lay just above the third branch. peach, individual fruits tend and nectarine. They bear fruit
down a permanent framework In the case of the cen- to be undersize and less sweet only on stems that grew the
of branches that can support tral-leader and modified-cen- with too heavy a crop. Prun- previous season, so need fair-
loads of fruit and not shade tral-leader trees, induce the ing also removes some po- ly severe annual pruning to
each other. main stem to keep making new tential fruits so the plant can stimulate an annual flush of
Centuries of fruit growing branches by cutting off about pump more energy into those vigorous, new shoots for the
have spawned many different a third of the previous season’s that remain. following year’s crop. Prune
forms for trees, but three pre- growth each year while the Once a tree matures to enough so that a bird could fly
dominate: the central-lead- plant is dormant. The top bud start bearing fruit, each year right through the branches.
er, the open-centre, and the grows to become an upright prune some stems and re- Apple and pear trees, at the
modified-central-leader. shoot, a continuation of the move others completely. other extreme, bear fruit on
The central-leader tree is leader, and lower buds become Shorten stems where you long-lived, very short, knob-
shaped much like a Christ- side branches. Select new side want regrowth and increased by branches, called spurs, so
mas tree, with a single lead- branches that are well-spaced branching. Completely re- need little such annual stim-
er — the trunk — flanked along the leader. move stems where you do not ulus. Eventually, though, even
by shorter and shorter side want such regrowth, such as spurs need pruning for rejuve-
branches moving up the THE MATURE, where stems are overcrowded. nation and elbow room.
tree. The open-centre tree Complete removal is also the Most other fruit trees lie
is vase-shaped, with three BEARING TREE way to deal with those vig- between the extremes of ap-
or four main limbs growing Once a fruit tree is ma- orous, upright shoots called ples and peaches in bearing
outward and upward. The ture and beyond the training watersprouts, which are not habit and severity of annual
modified-central-leader tree stage, then pruning it well fruitful and tend to shade pruning needed. Again, com-
is a hybrid that starts as a means striking a balance be- lower portions of the plant. pletely remove some stems
central-leader then becomes tween shoot growth and fruit The kind of tree you are and shorten others to achieve
open-centre. production. How to achieve pruning dictates the overall a good balance of fruiting
All these forms allow a tree this balance depends on how amount of pruning needed. wood and stem growth.
to “harvest” enough sunlight. — or really where — a partic- The younger the stems on
The ideal form for a particular ular tree bears its flowers and which fruits are borne, the » The Associated Press