Caring for fruit trees and shrubs

Fruit from your own garden is more popular than ever. But if you want a good harvest, you need to prune correctly and look after your plants well – and that varies a great deal depending on the type of fruit. Correct, expert fruit tree pruning combines practical training with a harmonious shape, so that the tree is also an ornament in the garden.

The right time to prune for each type of fruit

Fruit trees come in many forms – with different trunk heights (bush, half-standard, standard), as espaliers or as columnar fruit trees. For all of them, pruning has a decisive influence on the yield.

• Soft fruit such as currants or gooseberries can be pruned all year round – conveniently, after harvest.
• Stone fruit such as cherries or plums is pruned while in leaf, so ideally in summer. Summer pruning prevents the trees from bleeding heavily.
• Pome fruit is pruned in winter – but not when daytime temperatures stay below minus 5 °C for a longer period: the frost can penetrate the tissue and cause damage.

Every cut must be sharp – whether with a saw, secateurs or loppers. Torn wound edges or leftover stubs quickly become entry points for disease; clean cuts support the tree’s natural wound healing. As a rule, it is better to remove whole sections of branches rather than many individual ones – this causes fewer wounds, which in older, weakened trees may not heal optimally. After winter pruning, the water shoots should be removed in summer.

How to prune correctly

1. Thinning out: Saw off all branches growing inwards into the crown right at the base – they get too little light and bear no fruit.
2. Watch out for forks: If two branches develop equally strongly from the same point, a hollow can form in the fork where rainwater collects and causes rot. Remove one of the two branches early on.
3. Remove crossing branches: Where branches cross, rubbing creates wounds. Leave only the branches that are important for the structure of the crown.
4. Pay attention to branch angle: Almost upright branches bear hardly any fruit. Fruit trees blossom and fruit most abundantly at a branch angle of 35° to 45°.
5. Bark diseases such as fruit tree canker should be cut out back to healthy wood.
6. Protect the leader: During the development phase, the leader must not be pruned – it is, if anything, encouraged by pruning the side branches.

Plant protection

Plant protection starts with ecological controls: choosing suitable varieties, encouraging beneficial insects, supporting natural predators, insect traps and strengthening the trees’ resilience. In extreme weather, however, severe infestations of fungal diseases or pests can still occur (e.g. winter moth, bark beetle, leopard moth, aphids) – in that case, using environmentally friendly treatments is advisable.

Winter protection: the trunk coating

When there is frost at night in late winter and the sun shines on the trunk during the day – especially with continuous snow cover – dangerous frost cracks are a risk. To stop the bark from heating up on the sunny side, the trunk is whitewashed with a lime-based organic tree paint. The coating adheres better if you dilute the paint with silicate primer (available in DIY stores among the wall paints). If the coating flakes off – for example because young trees grow noticeably thicker – it needs to be renewed; the disinfecting effect alone is reason enough to check its condition regularly.