I was wondering if anyone could give me instruction on how to prune the following trees.
I bought them from Lowe's or Home Depot in contains earlier this year. They had been pruned before I bought them.
I had been reading instructions on how to pruning an open center tree. But I was still not sure how to proceed.
I assumed I should train the following trees as open center.
I think the common question I had is that, when there is no center leader, how to choose or induce a main trunk?
1. Plum Burgundy.
Do I just accept the three current branches and use them as scaffolds? Or I want another one or two scaffolds?
https://flic.kr/p/cqAzR3
2. Plum Santa Rosa
I seemed to me that it the central leaders were headed twice. The two thick branches (one from the trunk and the other from a branch) are all this year's wood. Should I just leave the branch at center as the leader and train from there? It is not strictly up right. It was about 20 degree from the vertical line.
https://flic.kr/p/cqAA6j
3. Blood orange Moro
It was very small and about 1 foot. I had no idea what I should do with it. There is no obvious leader I can use. I thought I should have the trunk grow to about 2 feet start training it as open center. But there is no central leader right now. It does have two strong branches, but they are very low.
https://flic.kr/p/cqAAyh
4. Loquat, Champagne
Should I just leave one of those branches and the center leader right now, and wait for more branches from the center leader, so that I have several inches between the scaffolds?
https://flic.kr/p/cqAAnU
Any comment is appreciated!
Depending on where you are in the Bay Area, I could give you a recommendation for an independent nursery who could advise you on these plants. They may have been pruned recently enough that they need to "rest" this season; without seeing them in person, it's difficult to know whether the timing is good to prune them this year.
But July isn't a good time for any of them in my experience (well, maybe the orange, but perhaps earlier in the spring would have been better). These fruit trees, when mature, are growing fruit in July for harvest pretty soon! So they're not expecting pruning at all, not now.
I've picked plums from friends' trees in Berkeley and Palo Alto in August and July, respectively, and loquats in Palo Alto over a period of months in the fall.
Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9
But July isn't a good time for any of them in my experience (well, maybe the orange, but perhaps earlier in the spring would have been better). These fruit trees, when mature, are growing fruit in July for harvest pretty soon! So they're not expecting pruning at all, not now.
I've picked plums from friends' trees in Berkeley and Palo Alto in August and July, respectively, and loquats in Palo Alto over a period of months in the fall.
Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9