My Experience With Pruning Fruit Trees
If you want to extend the life of your tree and encourage it to grow better fruit, you have to prune it. Pruning fruit trees is the thing to do, because that allows sunlight to reach all areas of the tree. I was determined not to call someone to do this for me, so I armed myself with a ladder and my best sewing scissors. I succeeded in opening the ladder and pinching my thumb in about 30 minutes. Then I climbed up this thing and had an idea of what Jack felt like when he climbed the beanstalk.
I realized I knew nothing about pruning fruit trees as soon as I reached the first limb, but I decided it couldn't be that difficult. I realized my scissors weren't going to do the job after I tried cutting a smaller limb from the tree. That's when I pulled out my husband's chain saw.
It had to be more effective than scissors, after all. Except I didn't anticipate how loud it would be! It startled me. I threw it on the ground and toppled backwards off the ladder. Luckily, we have soft grass. I swore at the stupid chain saw, then we back up the ladder with it. I was prepared this time; I started again.
Once again, I tried cutting that smaller limb. Did you know that chain saws are very sharp? I accidentally took out six limbs and went halfway through another one. Oh man, this really ticked me off. My precious tree! 1/4th of it was on the ground. Not to mention the fact that when those limbs fell, one of them hit me right in the forehead and left a big scratch. I would not give up.
How hard can pruning fruit trees possibly be? Getting the hedge shears, I climbed up in the tree this time. On the way up, I accidentally kicked the ladder over.
Boiling mad, I waited in that bleeping fruit tree until my husband found me in the tree, bleeding from the head, with dirt stuck to my butt. As my husband was laughing and I was walking back to the house, I gave that tree a look that would wither it and muttered, "Until Next Year!"
Visit Fruit Tree Nursery and get the tips you need to make pruning Fruit Trees not only easy, but also fun. Plus we got some other great fruit tree advice as well.
Published October 24th, 2007