Things You'll Need:
- Pruning shears
- Sharp knife
-
Step 1
Wait to renovate. It may be tempting to immediately prune, but for most fruit trees, there is an appropriate time for pruning. The best time to renovate apple and pear trees is in late winter, but for plums, cherries, and most other fruits, the renovating pruning should be done in summer.
-
Step 2
Get rid of crossing branches. One of the most damaging things that can happen with a neglected fruit tree is that its branches may grow across each other, rubbing and damaging the limbs. Trim out crossing branches by pruning the limb back to the origin.
-
Step 3
Thin the tree of overcrowded branches. Overcrowding will make the fruit tree congested. Congested trees lead to ideal conditions for many diseases to develop. Prune the tree open up to the center of the tree to allow it access to resources like water and sunlight.
-
Step 4
Eliminate weak, unproductive wood by removing any branches that are weak or underdeveloped. Resources are wasted in unproductive branches and should be removed to improve the remaining growth. Either prune the branches out completely or trim them back to a strong shoot.
-
Step 5
Cut away dead wood. Dead branches can be hazardous as well as unattractive. Dead branches are more likely to break than healthy ones. If dead limbs are left on the tree, they may allow damage to spread to other parts. Prune dead limbs back to areas of fresh growth.
-
Step 6
Cut away any diseased wood. Prune out any diseased branches by taking them back to completely healthy wood. When in doubt, cut away too much rather than risk leaving any diseased wood behind to infect other limbs.
-
Step 7
Add fresh mulch to the tree base. Fertilize, water and add a new layer of mulch to give the fruit tree a pickup in production.
