Apple and damson pruning

[agg221]

Apples - any time from leaf fall to bud break. The sooner you do it, the more growth you'll get so if it's growing vigorously and you want to slow it down, do it late, if it's growing slowly and you want to accelerate it, do it early. Older recommendations also suggest not pruning in frosty weather, so perhaps Jan/Feb is trickier these days? I must admit I tend to try to avoid pruning in frost, but I can't comment on whether it's made a lot of difference. You can summer prune too, to really slow them down, but this tends only to apply to heavily trained wall or wire-grown shapes such as espalier or fan, where you want to keep them very restricted in size.

 

Plum - from bud-break to the end of August to avoid silverleaf. For most plums you tend to either prune in June to aid in thinning the crop, or after harvest. With damsons you don't have the latter option as they fruit too late.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Alec