Your Summer Pruning Guide For Fruit Trees & Flowers
The gardening gods and goddesses have smiled upon you and blessed you with flourishing plants and blooms this summer.
And, of course, with great growth comes great – pruning.
Although summer pruning is considered an “off-season” chore when it comes to fruit trees, it’s necessary if you want to save your trees and yourself stress in the future. Not only does summer pruning help keep things manageable by maintaining the overall size of your trees, but it also ensures healthy growth.
The Benefits of Summer Pruning Your Fruit Trees
Prevent pests and diseases by checking the current state of your trees and addressing potential problems.
Increase light exposure and air circulation, which reduces fungal disease. In young fruit trees, exposure to light develops their fruiting wood. In mature trees, light enhances fruit size and quality (aka taste).
Strengthen branches. Pruning encourages your trees to develop sturdy growth that will support fruit in future seasons.
Create a strong structure. Pruning removes weak, leggy growth.
What to Prune
Dead limbs. They will appear dry and brittle. When in doubt, make a shallow horizontal cut on a branch and examine the color. If it’s green inside, it’s alive. Cut back just far enough until you see green inside the branch.
Damaged limbs. They will be cracked and bent. Cut below the damaged section until you see the next healthy bud.
Diseased limbs. They will usually have holes or lesions. (Be sure to sanitize your pruning tools between removal.)
Disoriented branches. Branches that are out of the angle range of 40 and 60 degrees.
Any suckers or watersprouts. Suckers are thin, upright branches that grow at or near the base of the trunk. Watersprouts are growth shoots that originate from nodes either on the surface or inside the tree's wood, typically appearing as clusters.
Crossing branches that cross the trunk or that rub together. When the friction of the wood causes the branches to open, they become wounded and susceptible to disease.
Thin or weak branches. Remember: you want nice, strong branches to be able to hold fruit.
What NOT to do When Summer Pruning
In the slight chance that we get rain, always save your pruning for a dry day. Rain can exacerbate diseases.
Avoid going bonkers with the pruning. Summer pruning is meant to be more of a maintenance task, removing no more than ⅓ off your trees.
* It’s important to remember, though, that you can remove suckers, watersprouts, as well as dead, damaged, or diseased limbs at any time.
General Rules for Summer Pruning Fruit Trees
Prune mature trees with a dense canopy
Prune after harvest
Prune vigorous upright shoots that grow from the interior canopy
The garden guides on our website hold a wealth of information about pruning and care for your specific fruit trees and other plants.
SUMMER PRUNING FLOWERS
Prune fuchsia flowers before they drop. Spent flowers may have brown edges or spots. Along with the flowers, remove the berry pods to encourage more blooms. Cut all the way back to the section between the pod and the plant stem.
For single-stemmed daisy varieties, such as Gerbera and Shasta, cut the stem all the way back to the base of the plant. Doing so will promote fall blooms.
Around this time in late summer, hydrangeas are growing new buds along the stems. Cut off the spent bloom well above the new buds.
Pinch your chrysanthemums. Along the stem, remove all side buds and leave the central bud to allow for a bigger flower.
Those little strawberry runner babies take a lot of energy away from Mama Strawberry. Remove runners off of first-year strawberry plants so they can focus their energy on fruit production. Place a healthy runner into a pot of compost. Once it forms roots, snip the runner from the parent, and there you’ll have a strawberry plant that will be ready to produce next summer.