Why Late Winter Is the Right Window

For apples and pears, the stretch from late January through to early March is the sweet spot. The tree is still dormant, the sap is down, and the shape of every branch is laid bare against the sky. You can see the crossing limbs, the weak forks, the gaps where light should be getting in. Cut now and the tree has the whole growing season to seal the wounds and push growth where you want it.

Leave it a few weeks too long and the buds start to swell. You end up cutting away this year's blossom, and the sap begins to rise, weeping from the cuts and opening the door to canker. Prune too early, in a hard frost, and the wood is brittle and the wounds slow to heal. So watch the forecast, pick a dry, still day above freezing, and get the job done.

There is one important exception. Plums, damsons, gages and cherries belong to the Prunus family and should not be pruned now. More on that below.

Get Your Eye In Before You Cut Anything

Put the secateurs down and walk a full circle around the tree first. Young fruit trees are forgiving, but every cut is a decision, and it is easy to nibble a tree into a mess of stubs by working branch by branch without a plan.

Decide on the shape you are building. Most garden and smallholding apples do well as an open-centred goblet: four to five main limbs spiralling out from the trunk, with a clear, airy middle. Pears and many tip-bearing apples suit a central leader, with a single main stem and tiered branches coming off it. Either way, you are building a permanent framework now that will carry fruit for twenty years or more.

As you look, have three things in mind:

• Spacing. Ideally 15–20cm between main limbs up the trunk, spiralling so that no branch sits directly above another.
• Angles. Wide-angled branches, roughly 45–60 degrees from the trunk, form strong unions. Narrow, upright V-forks with bark trapped in the crotch will split under a heavy crop.
• Direction. Limbs should head outward and slightly upward, opening the centre to light and air.

Your First Cuts: Take Out the Trouble

Start with what has to go, whatever shape you are building. The traditional list is the three Ds: dead, diseased and damaged wood. To that, add anything crossing, rubbing or growing inwards.

• Crossing branches. Where two branches rub, one must go. Keep the one that is better placed, has the wider angle and the stronger attachment. Remove the other completely, back to its point of origin.
• Inward growth. Anything heading back into the middle of the tree will clog the centre and shade the fruit. Take it out.
• Water shoots. Those vigorous, straight, vertical stems on the upper side of a branch rarely earn their place on a young tree. Remove them while they are small.
• Suckers. Growth from below the graft union is the rootstock, not the variety. Pull or cut it cleanly away at the base.

Cut back to the branch collar, the slight swelling where the branch meets its parent. Do not cut flush, and do not leave a stub — both give disease an entry point, and neither heals well. If you meet a branch more than a third of the thickness of the trunk, think twice. Removing it will set the tree back, so leave it for now and reduce it over two or three seasons instead.

Shaping the Young Framework

With the trouble cleared, you can start shaping. On the main leader, shorten the previous year's growth by about a third, cutting to an outward-facing bud. Make the cut on a slope running away from the bud at roughly 45 degrees, about 5mm above it. Too close and you damage the bud; too far and you leave a die-back stub.

Treat the side branches the same way. Where a branch is destined to become a permanent limb, head it back by a third to a bud pointing in the direction you want it to grow. Where it is just filling space, shorten it a little more to keep it subordinate to the main limbs. Always cut to a bud pointing outward or upward, never one that will send new growth into the centre of the tree.

If you get three or four buds shooting away below a cut, rub the weakest ones out in summer while they are soft. It saves a job next winter.

Plums, Gages and Cherries: Wait for Summer

Silver leaf and bacterial canker both enter through winter wounds, and Prunus species are especially vulnerable. Prune plums, damsons, gages and cherries between mid-June and mid-August instead, when the sap is flowing and wounds callus over quickly. The old adage is worth remembering: prune your plums in June, and you will whistle a happy tune.

If a branch breaks in winter, cut it back to sound wood and accept the risk — but do not carry out the annual shaping now. Leave that until the summer, when you can see the fruit and judge what the tree can carry.

Afterwards: Small Things That Matter

• Sharpen and clean your tools before you start and between trees, so you are not carrying disease from one to the next.
• Do not paint the wounds. Clean cuts on healthy wood seal themselves. Wound paint tends to trap moisture and do more harm than good.
• Deal with the prunings. Burn or bin anything diseased. Healthy wood can be chipped and composted.
• Check stakes and ties, loosening anything that is starting to bite into the trunk.
• Mulch in a ring around the tree after pruning, keeping it a hand's width clear of the trunk and away from the graft union.

Finally, keep a note of what you cut. Next winter you will be standing in the same spot, and knowing which limb you shortened, and by how much, makes the follow-on cuts far easier. Three or four winters of patient shaping gives you a tree with a strong frame, an open centre and fruit that ripens in good light — and after that, most of the work is done.