When buying a new apple or pear tree, you may be sold either one- or two-year-old plants. It is vital from these early stages to carry out formative pruning to ensure later success
Choosing a new tree
Many apple and pear trees on sale in nurseries and garden centres will be one or two years old, and much of the formative pruning will have already been done. When buying a tree, look for a well-balanced branch system forming an open goblet-shape - an open-centred bush is most easily managed in gardens.
One-year-old trees
‘Maidens’, or one-year-old trees, are sometimes sold, either with sideshoots (feathered) or without (unfeathered).
Unfeathered maidens are pruned in winter to a bud 75cm (2.5ft) above the ground, making sure there are three or four good buds beneath. Cultivars on strongly dwarfing rootstocks such as M27 can be pruned to about 60cm (2ft).
With feathered maidens (left), selected sideshoots can be used to form the main branches, speeding development by a year. Remove the centre by cutting to a wide-angled, strong shoot at approximately 75cm (2.5ft) from the ground a, ensuring there are two or three other evenly spaced shoots below to form the main branch system. These branches should then be shortened by half to two-thirds to an outward-facing bud b. The remaining lower branches are removed c. Carry out pruning in winter.
Two-year-old trees
If you buy a two-year-old tree, select the best three or four shoots to form the main framework of branches. Remove the topmost shoot d, if it is growing too vertically, in order to achieve the desired goblet shape. The selected branches are then shortened by about one-third to an outward-facing bud e. The remaining lower branches should be removed f.
Pruning the following winter
Select one or possibly two further shoots per branch to form secondary branches and shorten these by one-third. Once more the main shoots should be shortened by about one-third of the previous summer’s growth to a suitable bud. This will give eight to 10 branches to form the permanent framework. Shoots not required for the framework are cut back to four or five buds. Cut out any growth crowding the centre of the tree.
Tony Dickerson