Kitchen Garden Forum

I have moved into a new house a year ago and having set up the the greenhouse and veg plot i now have time to look at the fruit tress in the garden all of them are old put still crop
i would like to prune them and know that the main pruning is in the autum but i was woundering if i would be able to cut the DEAD branch of now the trees are apple pear plum many thanks for your answers

I would take dead wood out now on them all particularly on the plums as they are best pruned whilst growth is active. If the others are making soft whippy new growth that is only going to clog up the structure I would take that off as well. In a month or so you can do the normal summer pruning of half or a third of the new side growths then finish off in winter by cutting extension shoots and generally shaping the trees to what you want.

I agree with Geoff, the dead wood can be taken out now. That will open up the trees and allow better air circulation and light for the rest of the tree.

It's easy to see what's dead and what isn't while the leaves are still on, so removing dead wood in the summer is a good move. Apples and pears should have their shoots shortened by about a third in three or four weeks' time, but only if you need to keep your trees within bounds and / or trained to a particular shape. Plums and gauges are best pruned when the fruit has been picked.