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How to Prune Fruit Trees to Keep Them Small

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How to Prune Fruit Trees to Keep Them Small: The First Cut

The first step to growing a small fruit tree is to make a hard heading cut (a cut that removes the growing tip) when planting. While such a cut may seem extreme, your planting job will only be complete when you’ve lopped off the top two-thirds of your new tree. This pruning cut is critical because it will create a low scaffold (the primary limbs that make up the canopy of a tree), and making this cut during dormancy will give the tree strength and resilience, which is especially crucial for heavy stone fruits. Most importantly, it will help keep the canopy of the mature tree within arm’s reach.

Here’s how to handle the first cut. As winter comes to an end, and the ground is workable for planting, buy a dormant bareroot tree that’s about as big around as your thumb. Plant the tree as soon as possible. Choose a bud at knee height (about 18 inches from the ground), and make a clean, 45-degree cut that angles away from the bud. Cut close enough to the bud so it can heal cleanly in a natural line, but not so close that you cut into the bud itself. Several buds should remain between the cut and the graft — the knobby place low on the trunk where the scion (the graft that determines fruit variety) meets the rootstock. A knee-high prune is reasonable for almost all fruit trees for small gardens, but peaches and nectarines will sprout more reliably if you cut just above a nurse limb (a branch left to absorb the tree’s spring energy and encourage sprouting). A young tree will probably be a 5- to 6-foot whip at the nursery, so in most cases, you’ll remove more than you’ll leave behind. Your beautiful sapling will now be a knee-high stick.

A knee-high heading prune when planting a dormant tree is critical to size management and creating a low, sturdy scaffold.

Granted, this cut sounds harsh. Do it anyway. The compact structure of the tree to come will begin to develop as a consequence. Heading your tree while it’s still dormant will take advantage of nutrients stored in the roots, and vigorous growth and branching will occur in spring, when the plant directs its energy to the remaining buds, the perfect combination of conditions to get a small fruit tree off to a strong start. Your initial cut will awaken the buds below, and they will eventually develop into new limbs, each with a growing tip of its own. The resulting open-center tree will be shorter, stronger, easier to care for, and far more usefully fruitful.

Prune Fruit Trees for Small Gardens: The First Spring

After the first buds start to break in early spring, examine the spacing of the branches and decide if you like the arrangement of the top buds. If not, simply prune lower to a place where the configuration of leafing buds suits you. This place will eventually become the crotch of the tree. The lower the crotch, the easier it will be to keep the tree small. The earlier in the season you make this cut, the more vigorously new limbs will grow.

In early spring, remove any duplicate buds on the same node by gently pinching the bud with your fingers.

A young tree with a stem thicker than three-quarters of an inch may have a hard time pushing buds. In this case, make the first dormant cut where the caliper (width of the stem) is thumb-sized, then make a second cut lower as soon as buds begin to develop. After the sprouts get going, you can cut the scaffold as low as you prefer.

Revisit the tree once more in early spring just as sprouts reach 1 or 2 inches long before woody branches begin to form. Gently pinch off all but one bud where multiple sprouts grow on a single node.