Fruit tree experts....help needed

[British Red]

I have a few mature bullace trees in our new place - really heavy croppers too!

However one is heavily overgrowing a pathway

Any tips on pruning...are they "pruning averse" like plums?

 

[Peter_t]

well as it happens it is the perfect time to prune it!
all prunus trees should be pruned in july, august and september. not like most which it is best to prune in the winter as they will likely get a disease called peach lea curl.

plums tend to be very hardy so you can prune them quite drasticly and they will survive. in fact a heavy pruning will shock the tree into producing a heavy crop the next year or the year after.


pete

 

[locum76]

We've just pruned the fifty plum trees in the orchard. Besides the disease Pete mentioned, summer pruning is the best for restrictive pruning and therefore the best time to 'knock em back'. Get on it. I knocked a third off my brothers plum tree a few weeks ago and it's looking great now.

EDIT: productivity might drop a bit next year, it may also be a biannual fruiter and you'll get none.

 

[British Red]

Reckon I'll leave it a couple of weeks for final ripening first - that bough has about 15lbs of bullaces on it!!