How To Prune Fruit Trees - Peach, Apple, Fig and more

It's been two years now since I planted my backyard orchard here where I'm growing apples, peaches, persimmons, figs, jujube, and a wide variety of other fruit trees and this will be the fifth video in this ongoing series where I'm showing you everything that I'm doing to prune and maintain this backyard orchard from the day of planting until well hopefully a long time from now. So if you're interested in growing fruit trees definitely consider subscribing and if you're in the process right now of planting fruit trees or pruning them when they're in their first year or smaller than these certainly check out some of those earlier videos to see that process. But today in this video I'll show you how I'm doing my third winter pruning on these trees. This is my O'Henry peach, delicious late season yellow peach. I actually got to enjoy a couple of peaches from this tree last summer. They were outstanding and by the looks of it all these flower buds in this tree I'm going to have a really nice crop this year. When I planted this tree two years ago I pruned it down here to create the initial scaffold branches. You want an open center, open wine glass shape with outward scaffold branches to have good airflow and good sunlight in the center of a peach tree. So after that cut I did some summer pruning to bring it back down to size. Then last winter I pruned the tips of these scaffold branches to help them fork out and continue to grow outward from outward buds. It's growing in really nicely but there are a couple of branches growing in toward the center that we'll take care of. I see one nice big one right here that's going to be the first to go. You see this one branch right here growing right up in the center of the tree. Very vigorous, not in a good spot or angle so we'll remove that. A couple of branches here growing downward but they do have some fruit on them so I'll take them back a little bit. Maybe get a little crop from them this year. We'll keep those in place. Here's an area that's a little bit on the crowded side. I've got two nice branches right here growing at good directions but they're pretty close together. For now there's enough space but eventually I might have to choose between those two. But I do have a little bit that I can clean up in the middle of them and then right behind them. And then I like what's happening here with the fork at the end of this branch so I'll remove it above that. Continue that to fork out and then in order to push this branch further this way so it doesn't eventually collide with this one I'm going to go off this bud right here. Then I'll just tip prune these and I have a small branch right here that's growing in toward the center. And another similar scenario on this side of the tree with these two branches pretty close together but fine for now. Although these two in the center are crossing right here and they're just overcrowding this space. So I'll remove this one completely and I'll cut this one here back to an outward facing bud. Maybe get a branch coming out a little bit lower on the tree here. This small scaffold branch right here is dispersing all of its energy into these six branches right here and I want its energy to go outward. So I'll remove these inner upward branches that one as well and now its energy is going to continue to go this direction. And the last thing I'll do is just tip prune each of these branches to outward facing buds and remove any substantial branches that are growing in toward the center. That's it for winter pruning on this O'Henry peach tree. The next thing I'll do with this tree is thin the fruit this spring. It's got a lot of small spindly branches with a lot of blossoms on them. If I let those blossoms all turn into fruit these branches would bend and break. So I'm going to thin the fruit back to about one or two fruits per branch when it's about the size of a pea up to the size of a grape. And I want that fruit to be toward the base of the branch not way out here on the tip. Then I'll visit this tree in late summer for some size management pruning. Two years ago I planted this tiger stripe fig tree and when I did I pruned it right here which encouraged outward branching here and here. Then last year I came back and pruned it to outward facing buds here here and here which continued that outward growth to maintain the open center of this tree. So today I'll do the same thing further up the branches pruning to outward facing buds and removing any branches growing in the center to maintain the open center and continue to encourage the outward growth. I'll start by removing anything that's growing in the center like this big branch here. Last year I pruned this tree right around knee height so now I'll come back and print it to outward facing buds right around navel height. Eventually I want to keep each of these three main branches with only about three forking branches off of them so it doesn't get too crowded. This one right now has four on it in addition to the lower ones which are fine but four will eventually be too crowded although for this year it's not and I'll probably get fruit off of this so I'll keep it on till it fruits maybe print it off in fall or next winter. This is my blackjack fig it's new to me but it has been an exceptional fig very productive it fruited for about three months last year from summer all the way into fall and as you can see it actually has a lot of fruit on it right now that it put on in fall but these will not ripen up. So today I'm going to do a little bit of pruning on this tree but I'm really liking its initial shape. I initially pruned it right here which encouraged these outward scaffold branches then last year I came back and pruned it again about 12 to 18 inches beyond that to outward facing buds which created the forking at the end of these scaffold branches. Now today I'll bring them back a little bit another probably 12 inches from where I cut last year to more outward facing buds but before I do that I see a dead branch that needs to be removed and I see these two crossing branches so I can either remove one of them completely or shorten it and keep some fruit for this year. I decided rather than removing this branch completely at the base I just shortened it because I see some nice fruit buds along it so I'll get some fruit from this branch this summer then probably late summer or next winter I'll come back and remove it at the base. Now with all the inside cleaned up it's time to just prune these outward facing branches to outward facing buds. This branch right here is growing straight up that's not a direction I want but again I can see a lot of fruit buds all over it so I'll just shorten it back get some fruit from this this year and then probably remove it later on. This is my pink lady apple tree that I'm pruning to a modified central leader so when I planted it I made a pruning cut right here to encourage these outward scaffold branches and left one main central leader to come up that will be an upward scaffold. You can see it's filled in really nicely I've got nice scaffolding but it's a little bit too full so today what I'm going to do is come in clean up some of these vertical branches that are growing in toward the center I'll remove any crossing branches and then I'll take these outward scaffold branches down to outward facing buds to continue to encourage that outward growth here and up top what I'll do is prune the top to some outward buds to create this outward scaffold on the top. I want this tree to eventually be no taller than eight feet right now we're about at eight feet so I need to make those scaffold branches come low enough that I can pick the fruit and prune this tree from the ground without using a ladder. You probably noticed this tree has not gone completely dormant and that's a characteristic of these pink lady apples here in warmer parts of California they just don't like to go completely dormant so any of these branches that I don't remove I will manually defoliate these branches to prevent the possibility of disease. I'll start by removing any of these vertical branches growing in toward the center of the tree then I'll shorten or remove any smaller branches growing at the end of the scaffold branches toward the center. Now I'll remove any branches that are crowding or crossing on this lower scaffold then I'll tip prune each of the remaining branches to outward facing buds. Now I'm finished with the lower scaffold and it's time to focus on this upper scaffold. I can see right away that it's overcrowded I've got four branches coming in right here so right off the bat I'm going to remove this one that's coming off lowest because it's right over this branch here. Now I'm down to three and it's still pretty crowded in here but I see a lot of nice spur wood fruiting wood on these branches here that I think might give me a crop this year so I don't need to remove them right away although eventually I'll want to thin this out a bit but today I'm just going to continue this scaffold moving outward pruning to outward buds up top here removing anything in the center and the last thing I'm going to do for this tree is put in some spacers because as you can see some of these branches are coming in pretty vertically. By using a wood spacer I can push these branches out to a more desired angle because one characteristic of these apples and pears is they really want to grow up and we want them to grow out so we can do it through pruning cuts but it helps a little bit to also use these spacers. Okay I think that looks great this is my Shinseki Asian pear tree and I have it pruned to an open center which is not common for pears or apples they're usually either a modified center leader or a center leader but I wanted to try something out with this and so far it's working when I planted it I pruned it about knee high to encourage that scaffold and then I pruned it once more again last winter at the tips of the branches about one foot out to continue that outward growth it's really maintaining and creating that open center like I wanted it to through those pruning cuts but these want to grow straight up and as you can see some of the branches are doing that but that's fine because we have plenty of branches going outward so the first thing I'll do with this tree is just remove these center branches that are growing straight up this branch right here is one that I should probably remove because it's growing in the middle it's growing pretty vertical but it's got some nice fruiting wood right here that I think might put on some fruit this year so I'll leave this in place for now because it's not really going to shade out the rest of the tree in its position and I'll probably end up removing this branch completely next year as for the scaffold branches that remain now what I want to do is continue that growth from the tips of those branches so I have this branch right here I'm going to prune this to an outward bud same with this little one here and this here but I'll continue these outward bud cuts all around the perimeter of the tree this is a damaged branch right here it's got a big crack right at the base probably from a storm or something so I'll have to remove this branch I do see a bud beneath it on the branch it's connected to so I'll cut above that bud and hopefully that bud will create a new branch to replace this one and then on second thought now that I'm down here I think I do want to clear this branch out of the center all right much better and I'll keep this small branch right here just in case this bud doesn't come in to replace this branch this one's in a pretty good spot otherwise I'd remove this one and hopefully when this branch grows from this bud I'll be able to this is my lee jujubee that I'm pruning to an open center when I planted it two years ago I cut it right here creating the initial scaffold branches then last winter I pruned those out about 12 to 18 inches creating some forking and continuing that open centered outward growth now today it's got a really nice shape so all I need to do is clean up some of the branches that are overcrowding or going in the same direction as another one and a couple of branches that are coming up straight in the center I'll start right here you can see this branch has good spacing from the center this one's coming out a nice angle but this one is going the same angle as this one so it's kind of overcrowding so I'll just remove this branch and I'm going to cut it to a bud that might encourage it to come this direction then up here I also have some overcrowding this branch is growing really nicely and forking well but you can see this branch growing right over the top so I'll just remove that right at the base now I just have one more branch here that's going up toward the center and that's it for the jujubee man these things have a lot of thorns this is my flavor delight aprium it's an apricot plum cross and as you can see I'm a little bit late to my dormant pruning it already has some blossoms starting to open up and the main reason I'm late to the pruning on this tree this year is because we've had a lot of off and on rain in the forecast the last couple of weeks and it's never a good idea to prune your fruit trees when you have rain in the immediate forecast especially cherries and apricots and being an aprium it has those apricot traits so I didn't want to risk getting a disease on this tree just because I was trying to prune it in time a couple of buds on here not a big deal I did a big summer pruning on this tree this year so size management won't be an issue today most of what I'll be doing is cleaning up some overcrowded branches removing some upward branches in the center of this tree to maintain that open center outward scaffold and probably tip pruning some of these upper branches to outward facing buds starting right here you can see that this section is completely overcrowded all these branches are coming off at nice angles but I've got one two three branches in a row and that's way too much for this space so the first thing I'll do is remove this one in the center and then this one right here that's growing straight up here I have a branch growing directly over another branch so this lower branch can go and the last thing I'll do is prune the tips of some of these upper branches to outward facing buds all right I think this aprium looks great wow this is a gorgeous fruit tree this is my spice z nectar plum and I'm always amazed at how much growth it continues to put on especially when you consider how much I've been pruning it when I first planted this tree I pruned it like all the others way down low to create this open centered scaffold then that summer I pruned it down a lot last winter I pruned these scaffold branches out to these tips to create some branching then I pruned it again last summer and it just keeps being more and more vigorous I think it's part of the plum characteristic in this variety overall I'm really happy with the size and shape of this tree it's been responding really well to all the pruning cuts I've been making each year it's growing out into a nice open centered tree I don't have a lot of growth in the center and the size is still very manageable but today I do want to thin out some of the branches because it's pretty crowded along the edge there's a couple growing in toward the center and I do want to continue to maintain the size of this tree low enough to harvest and prune without a ladder so I'll tip prune some of these taller branches to outward buds clean up the center a little bit and hopefully get a lot of fruit this summer I'll start by clearing out some of these branches growing in here toward the center this branch here is a bit too vertical and it's starting to overcrowd this and this branch so we'll remove that one this branch right here is in a decent spot I wouldn't mind a nice low branch right here but it's just growing straight up and it's super vigorous it's actually the tallest limb on this tree right now and it's overcrowding both of these so I'm going to cut it to an outward bud right here see if I can get a little branch this way if I can't I'll just remove it completely later this one's way too straight for me to keep long term but it's got some nice fruit buds on it right now so I think I'll keep it until I can get some fruit from it then I'll either remove it late summer or next winter this one though that one's gonna go got some crossing branches right here so I'll remove that clean up a little bit of the middle here I definitely don't like these crossing branches so I'll remove this one I'll thin this back a little bit we're gonna get fruit right there in here it's really full with a lot of thin spindly branches a lot of fruit on some of them but it's way too crowded so I'm gonna come in here thin this out a little bit choose what stays choose what goes this low branch has some good fruiting potential it's got a lot of nice flowers on it but it's coming off at a very flat angle you can see this one here comes off at a flat angle but then it shoots up into a better angle I like that this one's continuing downward so I'll prune it back to an upward facing bud hopefully this one will be like this one grow back up to a nice solid angle for a good fruiting branch now I'll work my way further up the tree removing branches that are at bad angles or crossing other branches this one's doing both so that's definitely going to go and then also removing branches going in toward the center and then at the very top I'm going to tip prune each of these outward scaffold branches to more outward facing buds continuing that direction and keeping it at a manageable height I've got some nice low limbs down here on the south aspect of this tree so they're getting full sunlight really good fruiting potential I prune these back last summer to right here so you can see it's put on another 18 inches of growth since then but I don't want these getting too long because they are coming off the tree very flat so fruit is going to weigh them down so I'm going to bring those back again remove some of the crossing branches this one's not a good angle well I think that looks really good I'm very happy with how this tree has responded to all the pruning cuts it's got a really nice shape very vigorous lots of blossoms hopefully a lot of fruit this summer I am going to come in and thin this fruit in spring also fertilize all of the trees around that time and then I'll do a late summer pruning on all the trees for size management per usual so if you want to see those upcoming videos be sure to subscribe if you enjoyed this video hit that like button and as always if you have any questions at all about pruning my trees pruning your trees or anything in your garden ask them in the comments below happy gardening everyone Jesus