Tag Archives: pruning

Jam today

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Of the six fruit trees we planted in our mini orchard in the autumn of 2020, the damson has grown to be the biggest, and this year produced the most fruit. Last weekend we picked around three kilos..

The variety is ‘ Cheshire Damson’. They’re surprisingly sweet – I’d always thought they were too sour to eat fresh, but these are almost as sweet as plums. But as there were too many to use before they go off, we decided to have a go at making jam (a first for us). Here it is (well, most of it – we’ve already used one jar and given another away)…

Making jam is a bit of a faff. Luckily for me, my better half did most of the heavy lifting. We both took turns at picking the stones out from the pan while the mix was cooking. It was a bit like fishing, and a messy job. The alternative would have been to try and cut them out from the fruit before cooking, but they don’t come out easily. The recipe came from the internet, but apparently it’s a standard recipe – just equal amounts of fruit and sugar, plus a little bit of water. It wasn’t clear whether the weight of the fruit was with, or without the stones! We weren’t sure the jam was going to set, but it seems to have thickened up reasonably well, and it tastes good.

Once most of the damsons had been picked I took the opportunity to prune the tree. For free standing apple or pear trees, you would normally prune in the dormant season, but damsons, plums and cherries are in the genus Prunus, which can be susceptible to a disease called silver leaf, which spreads more easily when it’s cold and damp. To minimise the chance of infection, it’s recommended they should be pruned in summer. September is a little late, but it was a dry spell (quite rare for this year).

The growth of damson trees seems to be somewhat wayward, and I had to cut out a lot of branches that were crossing or growing into the centre of the tree. Once I’d dealt with these to reduce the congestion and open up the tree to more light and air, I trimmed a little from the ends of the outer branches – particularly at the top – to an outward facing bud, to reduce the height. So hopefully it will be going into autumn in good shape. And in the depths of winter, when we’re tucking into bread and jam for tea, we’ll remember the garden at its verdant best!

text & images © graham wright 2024

Pruning a Rambling Rose

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…in this case, Rosa ‘Francis E. Lester’; a beautiful single-flowered rambling rose with clusters of pink tinged white flowers. Like most ramblers, it delivers all of its blooms in one magnificent show of colour, in June. When the flower buds start to form and swell there’s a great sense of expectation. And when the first blooms begin to burst open, like bright stars in a lush green firmament, you know that summer has truly arrived.

Rosa ‘Francis E. Lester’, late June 2018

Rambling roses epitomise the optimism of early summer, when the winter just passed is finally forgotten, and the one to come is so far from our minds as to seem improbable. For a few weeks in June they re-assure us that life is good, and that summer will last forever.

The flowers begin to fade all too quickly of course. Luckily, that’s when many perennials and annuals are coming towards their best, so it isn’t too difficult to distract attention away from the slightly messy, uninteresting background that the rambler has become. Even then, it does the job of covering a bare wall or a fence with foliage. And all the while, the faded flowers are gradually forming attractive rose hips that will give another, albeit more muted, burst of colour in the autumn.

The hips are swelling and beginning to colour up – due to the prolonged hot weather, they may well be early this year.

You don’t have to prune rambling roses. If you plant them under a medium to large sized tree they’ll happily clamber all over it and provide a fabulous show every year without your having to touch them. Alternatively, some of the more vigorous varieties are capable of colonising a large section of your garden. As you can see from the photos, this one is busy sending out long shoots in every direction. So now is the time to knock it into shape.

Francis Lester attempting a ‘land grab’!

The Basic Principle

… is to cut out some of the old shoots, and tie in new ones to replace them.
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Hydrangea Roulette, anyone..?

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One day last week I was asked to remove last year’s flowers from a mop-head hydrangea. It’s normal to leave the flowers on over the winter, as they look quite decorative, and then snip them off in the spring (not too early, as they provide some protection from the frost for the new growth). Normally, this particular customer would do this kind of thing herself, but she had been so busy that she hadn’t got around to it. So she asked me to do it.
Spot the problem!
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Winter Pruning of Fruit Trees

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With the exception of Prunus species such as cherry, which are susceptible to silver leaf disease, free standing fruit trees are best pruned during the dormant season. You can do it anytime from late October through to early March, but I prefer to wait until the tree is fully settled into dormancy, and then get it done well before the buds begin to swell. Anytime during December and January is fine. Ideally, pick a day that isn’t too frosty or wet. Make sure your secateurs, loppers and saws are sharp and clean. I like to sterilise mine with diluted Jeyes fluid before and after, to avoid spreading any disease from one plant to another.

I’ve just pruned my quince tree (Cydonia oblonga ‘Vranja’). Quince fruits are about the size of, and a similar shape to pears. They have a downy coating, and a wonderful fragrance. They can be added to apple pies or crumbles to give them more flavour, or made into membrillo – quince paste – that is eaten with cheese. Apparently. But I know what you’re thinking – ‘who does he think he is; Mary Berry?’ Back to the pruning then, and the first question to ask is ‘why prune?’

The patient before surgery…


…not massively congested, but could benefit from some shaping

Quince makes quite a small tree – one of the reasons I chose it for my small garden – and although this specimen has grown fast during it’s four years in the garden, I’m happy for it to put on more height. I didn’t want to restrict it’s growth (more on that later) so I was pruning to improve the tree’s shape and to promote it’s health. Trees put out shoots in all directions, which can lead to them becoming quite congested. There were a number of shoots that were crossing each other. This is bad, because when branches rub together, they wound each other, and wounds can be entry points for disease. So those shoots had to go – I cut them back to their source.

There were other shoots growing in towards the centre of the tree. What you should be aiming for is an open shape. This lets light into the centre of the tree, which helps the fruit ripen, and allows for a good airflow through the canopy, which helps to prevent diseases. This was particularly relevant to me, as my quince suffered a bad bout of Quince leaf blight last year (Pulling Weeds Post 8/9/2017). So I cut most of the shoots that were growing inwards back to their source, opening up the canopy, and ensuring that all branches had some space around them.

Incidentally, when pruning fruit trees, you need to have an eye on the future. It isn’t quite so important for quince, which don’t tend to produce a huge harvest, but pears, and apples in particular, can be laden down with fruit, and it’s easy to underestimate just how much it will weigh down the branches. So when pruning in winter you need to think about the effect of the fruit, and whether branches will be bent down so far that they rest on the branch below, and prune to try and avoid this happening.

The next thing to consider is what’s generally known as ‘the three D’s’ – identify and cut out any wood that has signs of disease (such as canker), or is dead, or dying.

Finally, I pruned some of the rather spindly top shoots. How much you take off depends how much you want them to grow – perversely, the more you cut off, the more growth you stimulate. I really just tipped them to take off the thin, straggly ends – they should produce new, thicker shoots from the next remaining bud. Getting up to reach the top shoots can be difficult. My ladders weren’t tall enough to get me there, but I’ve found that you can grab the branch lower down and bend it down (gently – don’t risk snapping it!) until you can reach the tip.
The finished result – not a huge difference, but as I’ve said, it didn’t need that much pruning, and my general rule is that any tree that obviously looks as if it’s just been pruned is a tree that’s been pruned clumsily

My quince didn’t need a great deal of pruning, but for older trees, and particularly ones that haven’t been pruned for some years, it can be a different story. You may have to cut back large branches that are growing into the centre of the tree. If you need to reduce the size of the tree, I think it’s best to do it by cutting out some of the higher, leading branches back to their source, to maintain a natural shape, rather than lopping all of the branches to the height you want, leaving ugly stumps, which isn’t a good look. You should be aiming to shape a tree, not round it over. Bear in mind too, that if you cut fruit trees back too hard, they can respond by throwing out lots of long, straight shoots (known as water shoots) which won’t bear fruit, and which really spoil the shape of the tree. If a tree needs serious renovation to check it’s growth, then it’s best to do this gradually, over a number of seasons.
The prunings – as you can see, I didn’t need to remove a large quantity of material

One more thing to bear in mind – be careful up those ladders.

There was a young chap called Vince,
Who attempted to prune a quince.
But he dropped his saw, then fell off the ladder,
When he picked himself up you could see that he had a
Wound that would make anyone wince.

…Happy pruning!

Words and pictures copyright Graham Wright 2018