Val Bourne advises on sage fruit pruning techniques

It’s time to think about pruning your apple and pear trees while they’re still dormant, because the way the weather’s been this year we could be in for an early spring! Stone fruits (such as peaches, apricots, almonds, cherries and plums) are not pruned until summer however, so that the flowing sap can seal the wounds. If you pruned now you could allow a disease, such as Silver Leaf (Chondrostereum purpureum), to enter the tree.

Winter pruning of apples and pears should be a gentle affair carried out in clement conditions, not in really cold or unpleasant weather. Take your time, you can’t stick it back on, and always use sharp secateurs to make clean cuts. Start by removing the three ‘d’s; that’s any dead, diseased or dying wood. Then take out any branches that chafe and cross, and you made need a pruning saw for this. Remove any branches that are too close to the ground. All cuts should be made just above an outward-facing bud if possible, all the while aiming to create an airy framework.

Winter pruning should aim to preserve the fruit buds. These are fatter and rounder than the pointed leafy buds and it should be possible to spot them, especially in the second half of winter. Most trees fruit close to the branches and are known as spur fruiters so winter pruning generally consists of shortening the new wood on the leading branches, perhaps by a third.

This will encourage more side shoots and these are summer-pruned back to six buds. This two-part pruning regime (used for pears and apples) should encourage more flower buds. Your fruit will be close to the main framework and the tree airy enough to allow the sun to ripen the fruit. Fruit should also be thinned in July in heavily cropping years.

The problem is varieties vary greatly in habit and bud formation. Some apples are tip-bearing (with apples forming on the ends). Others, like the ‘Bramley Seedling’ are vigorous triploids that tend to fruit heavily every other year. I have three apple trees, planted six years ago, and they are all entirely different in stance and profile. My ‘Blenheim Orange’ is an octopus with outstretched tentacles and so far no fruit. My productive ‘D’Arcy Spice’ is an upright guardsman that I need to stand on a stepladder to prune already. My ‘Pitmaston Pineapple’ is shaped like a seven-branched menora, or Jewish candelabra. That’s partly due to a mixture of wet summers which encouraged lots of growth, followed by dry summers that stunted growth.

Unfortunately my trees do not read textbooks.

I always try to encourage branches to develop fairly horizontally because more fruit buds are formed when the sap is running more slowly. I haven’t succeeded with ‘D’Arcy Spice’. Despite that I stored enough apples to last between October and Christmas. In years to come I hope for more.

All fruit needs a warm, sunny position that’s as sheltered as possible because fruit produces a much better crop when out-pollinated by an insect or bee. The lure is the nectar (a sugar-rich energy drink) and the flow is always better in warmer conditions. Ideally all fruit trees need a position that gets half a day’s sunshine — preferably in the afternoon. Given this, the bees will visit and improve your crop. Avoid frost pockets and if your garden is cold, as mine is, opt for later-flowering varieties. Most fruit trees are grouped into pollination groups according to flowering times and most need a friend to flower at the same time. Some vigorous trees are triploid (with three sets of chromosomes) and their pollen is not compatible with other varieties.

In this case three varieties are needed, unless you are in an area where fruit trees abound.