Interactive lesson

Pruning fruit trees, step by step

Interactive lesson: read the tree, pick the right time, cut to a bud and at the collar, train a young tree, keep a cropping tree in balance and work safely on the ladder.

Free sample Chapters 1 and 2 (8 steps) are free. The full lesson comes with the Pruning: formative and maintenance module. Already bought? Unlock

This lesson is general guidance, not professional training. Local regulations and expert advice always take precedence. Read our disclaimer.

The whole lesson as text

1. Read the tree

Before you pick up the secateurs, look at the buds and branches.

Growth bud — Thin, pointed and lying flat against the shoot. A leaf and a shoot grow from it.
Fruit bud — Fatter, rounded and downy. It opens into blossom and fruit. Keep and renew the fruiting spurs.
Hard cut, strong growth — Shorten a one-year shoot and 2–4 strong shoots grow from the buds below the cut. Hard winter pruning doesn't calm a vigorous tree.
Bending drives fruiting — A branch bent to horizontal calms down and forms fruit buds. An upright branch grows upwards and crops late.

Why: An unpruned tree crops more and more at the top and smaller and smaller, while an over-pruned one throws water shoots and doesn't crop. Once you know which bud is a fruit bud and what a cut encourages, you know how much crop you are leaving.

Apples and pears fruit on short fruiting spurs on two-year-old and older wood.
Peaches fruit on one-year-old shoots, and only once, so they are pruned hardest of all.

2. When to prune

Each species has its season, and the weather outside decides the day.

Apples and pears in winter — Main pruning from November to early March, while the tree is dormant.
Not in hard frost — At −5 °C (23 °F) and below the wood is brittle and wounds close poorly. Dry days from November to early March are best.
Stone fruit later — Young plums in spring as buds break, established plums in June – July. Cherries and apricots after picking.
Never in the rain — Don't prune stone fruit in rain, fog or damp weather. Prune on a dry day and take diseased branches out of the orchard.

Why: Winter wounds on stone fruit let in silver leaf, canker and gumming, so it is pruned later. Apples and pears tolerate winter pruning, but not in hard frost.

Sweet cherries are pruned after picking, July – August, when a wound closes quickly.
Peaches are pruned in spring, as buds break and after flowering: you see which buds survived the frost.