Pruning Fruit

[nepia]

(Nepia, a good bit of advice I got re; watershoots, pull out when young and never remove more than 90% so that there is somewhere for the energy to go, if these can't be allowed to develop to form new fruiting wood then they can be pruned out gradually in successive years)

 

 

 

Brill - thanks for that; I'll read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.

Pulling watershoots?! New one on me but I don't tend to get involved until they're half an inch thick and I'm only a thin 12 stone! I'd fall off me ladder trying!

My advice comes from a Catholic priest friend with DipHort Kew after his name (a mate of Alan Titchmarsh no less!); he says remove two out of three water shoots and cut the third back to two/three outward facing buds. (That's after clearing out the centre of the tree).

If you spoke to a dozen 'experts', and I mean no disrespect by using quotes, I think you'd get a dozen regimes out of them but the basics are common.

Thank God Spring's here and we can get back to the leyland hedges. OMG; did I really say that?!