Can I prune an apple tree in summer?

Yes, and for some jobs it is the better choice. Cutting in late July and August removes leaves that are still feeding the tree, so growth slows instead of being pushed on. That suits a tree which has grown too large, an espalier or a fan, and fruit you want to colour. Heavy structural cuts wait for the dormant season.

What happens if I prune a plum tree in winter?

You leave a fresh wound open while silver leaf spores are in the air, and the fungus enters through it. The branch dies back over the next season or two. Plums, damsons, gages and cherries are safer cut from June into August, once flowering is over.

How do I tell a fruit bud from a growth bud?

Look at both on the same branch and the difference is clear. A fruit bud is fat, round and usually sits on a short spur on older wood. A growth bud is slim, pointed and pressed close against the shoot. Cut above growth buds, and leave the fat ones where they are.

Should I paint the cuts on a fruit tree?

No. Wound paints and sealants are not recommended, because they trap moisture under a sealed surface and can hold disease in rather than keeping it out. A clean cut in the right place, made at the right time of year, is what the tree seals by itself.

Can an old apple tree be brought back into cropping?

Usually, if the trunk is sound, and it takes two or three winters rather than one visit. Dead, diseased and crossing wood comes out first, then the centre is opened, then the shape is rebuilt. Take too much in one winter and the tree answers with dense upright growth and very little fruit.

How often should fruit trees be pruned?

Once a year, and lightly, is better than a heavy cut every few years. Apples and pears are done in the dormant season, plums and cherries in summer, and a trained tree gets both: a summer trim of the side shoots and a winter cut of the framework.

Do you prune fruit trees where I live?

People usually start by looking for fruit tree pruning near me, and most of the firms that come back will cut a tree. The question worth asking is whether they prune fruit trees every winter, because the history of the tree is half the job. We work across North Yorkshire and County Durham, from a single garden apple to a short orchard row, and every tree is looked at before a quote is written.

Do you prune espaliers and trained fruit trees?

Yes, and it is slower work than a free standing tree, because the form is kept by many small cuts rather than a few large ones. If the tree is trained to a wall, say so when you get in touch. Most people who find us through fruit tree pruning near me are surprised that a trained tree gets two visits, the summer trim and the winter framework cut, and that they are months apart.

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Apple tree pruning and fruit tree care in North Yorkshire and County Durham

Apple tree pruning in winter, summer pruning for size, and why plums and cherries wait for June. Fruit tree work across North Yorkshire and County Durham.

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Apple tree pruning: fruit buds and growth buds

Apple tree pruning starts with the buds, not the saw. Most garden apples, Bramley and Cox among them, are spur bearing: the fruit sits on short, knobbly spurs carried on wood two years old and older, and that wood is the crop for years to come. Tip bearers such as Discovery and Worcester Pearmain fruit at the ends of last year's shoots, so a winter tidy up takes the crop with it. Prune those lightly, in summer.

Learn the two buds before the first cut. A fruit bud is fat and round, often on a short spur; a growth bud is slim, pointed and lies close to the shoot. Structure comes first, while the tree is dormant: dead, diseased and crossing branches out, anything growing straight up through the middle out, then last year's growth on the main limbs shortened to a bud facing the way you want the branch to run. In late July and August, shorten the side shoots that grew over the summer back to a few leaves above the spur. Winter pruning invigorates a tree; summer pruning slows it and lets light onto the fruit.

Cut to the branch collar, the swelling where a branch meets its parent, and leave no stub. Clean the blades between trees, particularly after cutting canker, which shows as sunken, cracked bark with white pustules and takes a great deal of wood with it if it is ignored. Sharp bypass secateurs and a pruning saw are most of fruit tree care.

Plum tree pruning, cherry tree pruning and pear tree pruning

Plums, cherries, damsons and gages are pruned in late spring or early summer, never in the dormant season, and the reason is silver leaf. That fungus releases its spores in damp air from autumn through to spring and enters through fresh cuts. Once in the wood it kills branches and gives the foliage a silvery sheen, and there is no cure for an infected branch: the answer is to cut back to clean wood in the growing season.

Work from June into August, once flowering is over and the sap is moving. Keep it light: a plum untouched for years is better improved over three summers than cut back in one afternoon, so take out dead, damaged and crossing wood and leave the rest. Cherries carry bacterial canker on top of the silver leaf risk, which is another reason to stay out of the dormant season. Pears are spur bearing and do take winter pruning, but the wood is brittle and the tree regrows slowly, so cut less than you would on an apple and leave branches well spaced rather than close forks that split under a heavy crop.

When to prune fruit trees

The dormant season runs from leaf fall in November to the end of February, and the middle of it is the best of the window for apples and pears. Choose a dry, still day with no hard frost forecast: wood cut in a frost shatters at the edges, and a wet cut is an open door for canker. Leave the tree alone once the buds break.

Summer pruning is a different job with a different result. Cutting in late July and August removes leaves that are still making food, so the tree slows rather than pushing new growth, the fruit colours, and the wood has warm weeks left to seal. Dead and diseased wood ignores all of this and comes out on any dry day. Month by month detail lives in our guide to when to prune fruit trees.

Espalier and trained fruit trees

An espalier, a fan, a cordon and a stepover are the same idea in different shapes: a fruit tree trained flat against a wall, a fence or a wire frame. All of them need a dwarfing rootstock, M27 or M9 for apples, or the growth outruns the framework.

The routine has two halves. In summer, cut the side shoots that grew this season back to three or four leaves above the spur, which keeps the form tight and pushes the tree into fruit buds. In winter, cut the extension growth at the ends of the arms back by about a third, to a bud facing the way you want the arm to travel, and tie new growth in with soft twine. An established trained tree is mostly small cuts repeated every year, so allow longer for it than for a free standing tree. Where a wall is the only space a garden has for fruit, this is how to use it, and the same thinking sits behind choosing trees for small gardens.

What fruit tree pruning costs

What changes the price of fruit tree pruning is time: the size and age of the tree, whether the work can be done from the ground or needs ladders and a rope, whether the tree is free standing or trained to a wall, and how many trees are in the round. An espalier is a long series of small cuts with secateurs; a large Bramley over a greenhouse is a different afternoon. Season matters too, because winter fills up first and a summer trim on a trained form is a visit of its own.

The tree's history matters as much as its size. A garden apple pruned every winter is an hour of work. A tree left for fifteen years carries dead, cankered and crossing wood, so the job is planned over more than one season. A quote is built from standing under the tree, not from a description over the phone: the trunk, the joins where the limbs meet, the ground below and the gap the prunings have to be carried through. It should say what will be cut, how many visits it takes, and what happens to the wood. Our tree pruning cost page explains how pruning is priced in general, and it does not quote figures, for any job.

Pruning old and neglected fruit trees

A tree untouched for twenty years is a project, not a visit. Orchard restoration runs over two or three winters. The first takes out dead, diseased and crossing wood and nothing else, so the tree keeps enough leaf to feed itself. The second opens the centre and lets light back into the fruiting wood. The third rebuilds the shape and brings the height down to what can be reached from a ladder.

Expect the tree to answer. Heavy cuts into old wood produce a crowd of strong upright shoots, and half of those should come out the following summer or the tree spends its energy on wood rather than fruit. Take no more than a quarter of the canopy in one winter. A plum or a cherry losing more than that is a job spread over three summers, in the growing season only.

Some trees are past pruning: a trunk hollow enough to flex, a tree that has tipped as the root plate lifted, or one standing where no cut will make it safe. Tree removal, crown reductions, stump grinding and emergency storm work are carried out by Ross Webster Tree Services across North Yorkshire and County Durham.

Fruit tree care through the year

Pruning is one visit; the rest of the year decides how the tree crops. Mulch in late winter with well rotted manure or compost, spread over the rooting area and kept clear of the trunk, and water a young tree properly through its first two summers rather than little and often.

Thin the fruit in July, once the tree has dropped what it cannot carry. Leave one apple per cluster, roughly a hand's width apart, and the rest sizes up better and the tree is less likely to crop heavily one year and take the next off. Clear mummified fruit and fallen leaves from under the tree, because both carry next season's scab and codling moth. A grease band around the trunk in October stops the wingless female winter moth climbing to lay. Do not feed a tree that is already growing too hard: extra nitrogen makes shoots and leaves, and a tree that runs to wood carries little fruit. This work can also be taken in a garden maintenance round.

Tree surgery, handled locally

Tree surgery is handled by Ross Webster Tree Services

This page covers the garden side of tree work: planting, pruning and aftercare. Tree removal, crown reductions, stump grinding, emergency and storm work, tree surveys, ash dieback and commercial contracts are carried out by Ross Webster Tree Services.

Tree removal
Crown reductions
Stump grinding
Emergency and storm work
Tree surveys
Ash dieback
Commercial contracts

They work across the same ground as this practice, and their contact details are on their site.

Ross Webster Tree Services

Questions about apple tree pruning

Can I prune an apple tree in summer?: Yes, and for some jobs it is the better choice. Cutting in late July and August removes leaves that are still feeding the tree, so growth slows instead of being pushed on. That suits a tree which has grown too large, an espalier or a fan, and fruit you want to colour. Heavy structural cuts wait for the dormant season.
What happens if I prune a plum tree in winter?: You leave a fresh wound open while silver leaf spores are in the air, and the fungus enters through it. The branch dies back over the next season or two. Plums, damsons, gages and cherries are safer cut from June into August, once flowering is over.
How do I tell a fruit bud from a growth bud?: Look at both on the same branch and the difference is clear. A fruit bud is fat, round and usually sits on a short spur on older wood. A growth bud is slim, pointed and pressed close against the shoot. Cut above growth buds, and leave the fat ones where they are.
Should I paint the cuts on a fruit tree?: No. Wound paints and sealants are not recommended, because they trap moisture under a sealed surface and can hold disease in rather than keeping it out. A clean cut in the right place, made at the right time of year, is what the tree seals by itself.
Can an old apple tree be brought back into cropping?: Usually, if the trunk is sound, and it takes two or three winters rather than one visit. Dead, diseased and crossing wood comes out first, then the centre is opened, then the shape is rebuilt. Take too much in one winter and the tree answers with dense upright growth and very little fruit.
How often should fruit trees be pruned?: Once a year, and lightly, is better than a heavy cut every few years. Apples and pears are done in the dormant season, plums and cherries in summer, and a trained tree gets both: a summer trim of the side shoots and a winter cut of the framework.
Do you prune fruit trees where I live?: People usually start by looking for fruit tree pruning near me, and most of the firms that come back will cut a tree. The question worth asking is whether they prune fruit trees every winter, because the history of the tree is half the job. We work across North Yorkshire and County Durham, from a single garden apple to a short orchard row, and every tree is looked at before a quote is written.
Do you prune espaliers and trained fruit trees?: Yes, and it is slower work than a free standing tree, because the form is kept by many small cuts rather than a few large ones. If the tree is trained to a wall, say so when you get in touch. Most people who find us through fruit tree pruning near me are surprised that a trained tree gets two visits, the summer trim and the winter framework cut, and that they are months apart.

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