Kitchen Garden Forum

I have a peach tree that I planted a year ago. It has grown very well and is now about 8 feet tall. Can I prune the leading branch at the top of the tree to restrict its growth without damaging it?

What type is it and is it budded onto a dwarfing rootstock?

Peach is a stone fruit and I always understood that any stone fruit should not be pruned back in winter.

This webpage may assist you

http://homeguides.sfgate.com/time-prune ... 39859.html

Don't touch it yet melliff! I believe you can cut the leader, they are quite easy to train into fans or espaliers so you would have to for that. RHS site has some good information.

Summer prune stone fruit & think about making a cover for it; leave the sides open for pollinators, you don't want silver leaf. I lost my first peach to this, tried to fight it for a couple of years but had to dig it up as couldn't get rid of it. I have 2 dwarf ones in pots now, which are much easier to protect, this is also covered in the RHS site & I have seen their plastic covers first hand at one of their local gardens, theirs are against walls so not too hard if you handy with building.

tigerburnie wrote:What type is it and is it budded onto a dwarfing rootstock?

The variety is "Avalon Pride". The rootstock is Montclare. The retailers bumph says that it should have a height of about 6':

http://www.thompson-morgan.com/fruit/fruit-trees/stone-fruit-trees/peach-avalon-pride/87129TM

The books tend to tell you to grow them against a south facing wall, so that would suggest cordon or fan training to me, or even espalier, most of these would seem to suggest restricting the height to encourage side shoots, but again as has been said, not winter pruning.