How severely can you "prune" a cherry tree?

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Casey76

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How severely can you "prune" a cherry tree?
« on: November 21, 2013, 13:30 »
One of the biggest trees in my garden is a huge cherry tree.  It's now taller than the house, and has a spread of about 8m diameter.

The underside is so shaded, that the cherries really only grow on the upper branches, and so I can't actually harvest any of them.

It was initially trained into a semi globe shape, but the primary branches (i.e. ths branches first off the trunk) are now approx 8in in diameter.

As you can imagine, the tree takes up a huge amount of room, but I don't want to kill it off as it does produce lovely edible cherries.

How hard can I trim(!) it back before I compromise the tree all together? (I don't mind not having fruit for a few years, if the tree requires recover time).

This photo is from almost 4 years ago, and the tree seems to have grown significantly over that time...

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Nobbie

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Re: How severely can you "prune" a cherry tree?
« Reply #1 on: November 21, 2013, 13:45 »
I have a couple of flowering cherries that were getting to big and were about the same size as in the photo. I wasn't that bothered about them so I just attacked them with a saw and long handled pruners in winter ( I know you should prune in summer, but easier to see what you're doing without leaves). I cut it back by about 1/3 off the top and tidied up around the edges and took out some large crossing branches.

Had one season of fewer flowers, but then it was back to business as usual and it probably needs doing again now :( If you don't wantto take any chances then prune in summmer to avoid silverleaf infection, but you'll probably find the regrowth less vigourous than I did as the sap will be up in the leaves and branches.

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Casey76

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Re: How severely can you "prune" a cherry tree?
« Reply #2 on: November 21, 2013, 14:07 »
Thanks Nobbie,

I'm probably looking to reduce the size by at least half. So the promary branches will have to be cut back from about 20ft to 5ft.  This is obviously going to leave some large cut surfaces, but I know the guy over the road does his cherries in Autumn, so I don't know how prevalent silverleaf infections are here... if I do it in the dead of winter (-20C ish!) will it be too cold for the fungi? lol!

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Nobbie

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Re: How severely can you "prune" a cherry tree?
« Reply #3 on: November 21, 2013, 16:38 »
I think I remember Bob Flowerdew saying he pruned in winter, but then scorched the cut ends with a blowtorch to kill any spores. Not sure how effective than would be or the chances of infection without any precautions. Maybe as the tree is obviously very healthy it might be able to fight off an attack.

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Yorkie

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Re: How severely can you "prune" a cherry tree?
« Reply #4 on: November 21, 2013, 18:00 »
They tend to recommend pruning in stages with an old, established tree - 1/3 at a time so the tree doesn't get too much of a shock.  And, as others, have said, you should prune stone fruit before the end of summer to protect against silver leaf.  Nobody can say whether you'd get the infection or not based on others' experiences - you'll just have to balance the risks for yourself.
I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days all attack me at once...

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goodtogrow

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Re: How severely can you "prune" a cherry tree?
« Reply #5 on: November 21, 2013, 19:52 »
Agree with Yorkie about 1/3 maximum reduction each year, especially in a mature tree, especially with prunus which do not like heavy lopping - have seen  ' pollarded' trees  never go on to recover - performed by cowboys, not me!

Silver leaf - why risk cutting before it's flowered and ready to make new wood?  I've got the impression you don't want to lose it, so bit each year, cutting at the right time of year.
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diospyros

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Re: How severely can you "prune" a cherry tree?
« Reply #6 on: November 21, 2013, 21:04 »
I would just say that rather than cutting branches back, you should be looking to thin out the crown by taking out larger branches further down.  Effectively, fewer cuts for the amount of stuff you remove.  Keep an eye on the pile on the ground as peeps have said and take no more than 1/3.  If you lop branches back to make the crown overall smaller in diameter, the tree will either sprout mad bristly stuff from the ends which will get congested, diseased and never make a nice elegant form again, or it'll get upset confused and die.  If you take out a whole branch you will get bristly stuff round the one cut but overall, less regrowth, and the flow of auxins from the tips of the growing points, which suppress growth in the rest of the tree, will not be lessened.

This will not solve your problem of not being able to reach the fruit, but I think you will never win the fight trying to reduce crown diameter on such a vigorous rootstock.

And I would wait til summer, not just because of silverleaf (which may or may not be a problem where you are)and also because summer pruning is for fruit, winter for growth.

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Casey76

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Re: How severely can you "prune" a cherry tree?
« Reply #7 on: November 21, 2013, 21:56 »
This was taken this morning, just to try and illustrate a little better. The tree isn't on a "vigorous rootstock" it is a native/natural , no grafting involved. Tbh, the tree is a menace, and every snowfall or gale we have I'm concerned about a branch going through my roof. While there are no leaves on, I might try to see which branches I could remove in summer, though there are only  about 7 primary branches.

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Yorkie

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Re: How severely can you "prune" a cherry tree?
« Reply #8 on: November 21, 2013, 22:10 »
Good idea to identify which branches at this point - I'd suggest you get a bit of paint and use it to mark where you'd like to prune next year.

I did this in reverse with my apple tree.  Some branches weren't alive any longer, but of course I had to identify them when the leaves were still on - they all look dead without leaves!  Painted in summer, lopped in winter.

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goodtogrow

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Re: How severely can you "prune" a cherry tree?
« Reply #9 on: November 22, 2013, 07:54 »
That's a helpful picture.

You could apply the one third rule differently.  Instead of taking off a third of everything, to maintain balance in the tree's form, you could reduce the main stems by as much as a half and leave the secondary branches, lower down, alone in the first year.  It couldn't be a menace then, tho the result wouldn't be pretty.  You'd still only be aiming to take off a third of the wood at one time.

It wouldn't matter how it regrew, because you'd be hitting it again the following year.

From the size of the trunk it looks like it's already been hit hard in the past.  You could make that tree pretty again, as well as practical.

Best wishes

It's being multi-stemmed looks like a deliberate bit of formative pruning.  Work with each stem to encourage spread, not height, which implies some annual maintenance once you've got it settled down to its original intended form.
« Last Edit: November 22, 2013, 08:15 by goodtogrow »

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allotmentann

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Re: How severely can you "prune" a cherry tree?
« Reply #10 on: November 22, 2013, 08:30 »
Nobbie  made an important point, putting silver leaf aside. I believe if you prune in winter it promotes vigorous growth, if you want to prune because you want a smaller tree, spring/ summer pruning is better.  So, pruning in winter would likely just make your problem worse in the long run.   :)

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diospyros

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Re: How severely can you "prune" a cherry tree?
« Reply #11 on: November 22, 2013, 09:07 »
The tree isn't on a "vigorous rootstock" it is a native/natural , no grafting involved.

Well, exactly, it's on its own rootstock which is obviously very vigorous!



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