Gadenin日本語Get the appWhere the flowers actually are
Japanese apricot flowers and fruits mainly on short spurs, an inch or two (3 to 5 cm) long, carried on wood that grew the previous year and on older spur systems built up on that wood. It does not flower on the long new shoots made this season, and it does not flower on bare old limbs that have been shaded out. Everything about how you prune follows from that one fact.
In winter the flower buds are already there, sitting fat and round on those spurs, distinguishable from the smaller pointed growth buds if you look closely. Cutting hard in winter is therefore cutting off the crop and the display in the same stroke. Gardeners who prune this tree in winter out of habit, because it looks like a plum and plums get pruned in winter, wonder why it flowers less every year.
The other reason to leave winter alone is disease. Like other stone fruit, this tree is vulnerable to silver leaf and to bacterial canker entering through cuts, and the spores are most active in cool damp conditions. Wounds made in warm dry weather while the tree is in full growth callus over quickly; wounds made in a wet winter sit open for months.
| Bud or wood type | How to recognize it | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|
| Flower bud | Fat, round, often in clusters of two or three on a short spur | Keep. This is next winter's blossom and next summer's fruit |
| Growth bud | Small, pointed, pressed flat against the stem | Keep enough to renew the tree, remove the rest by shortening |
| Last year's wood | Smooth, lighter bark, pencil thick, carrying most of the spurs | Shorten rather than remove; this is your fruiting wood |
| This year's shoot | Soft, green tipped, growing straight up or into the center | Cut back or remove; it carries nothing this coming winter |
| Water shoot | Very vigorous, vertical, from a limb or the base, no spurs | Remove at the point of origin unless you need it to fill a gap |
| Old bare spur system | Congested, twiggy, several years old, buds getting weaker | Cut back to two or three of the strongest spurs to renew it |
Prune after picking, not in winter
The main pruning of the year happens in summer, once the fruit has been picked and the tree is still in full leaf and full growth. At that point you can see exactly which wood carried the crop, the tree seals cuts within weeks, and the shoots you shorten have time to form flower buds for the following winter.
Do not wait until the leaves start to turn. Cuts made late in the season, when growth is slowing, sit open into the cold and heal badly. If you missed the window entirely, it is better to leave the tree alone for a year than to prune it in midwinter.
- Take out the four Ds first Remove anything dead, damaged, diseased or crossing, cutting back to healthy wood or to the branch collar. This is the only pruning that is worth doing at any time of year, and on a neglected tree it may be most of the job.
- Open the center Remove shoots growing inward across the middle of the tree. Spurs in permanent shade give weak flower buds and no fruit, and a congested center stays damp after rain, which is where rot and canker start.
- Shorten this year's shoots Cut the new shoots you want to keep back to five or six leaves from their base. That checks the shoot, ripens what remains, and encourages the buds along it to form flower buds rather than more length.
- Remove water shoots at the base Cut vertical unbranched shoots off flush at their point of origin rather than shortening them, since shortening produces three more from the same point. Keep one only if you need it to replace a limb.
- Renew tired spur systems Where a cluster of spurs has become congested and twiggy over several years, cut it back to two or three of the strongest. The tree responds by building fresh spurs that flower far better than the crowded ones did.
- Stop while you can still see through the tree Aim to remove no more than a quarter of the canopy in one year. Take more than that and the tree replies with a forest of water shoots the following season and no flowers.
Building the framework in the first four years
A young tree needs a different job done to it than a cropping one. In the first three or four summers you are choosing three to five main limbs, well spaced around the trunk and heading outward and upward rather than into the middle, and removing competitors for them. Once that frame is established you switch to the maintenance routine above and stop making big cuts.
Shorten each chosen limb by about a third in the first two summers to make it branch, and rub out shoots low on the trunk while they are still soft, which is far less damaging than cutting them off as wood later. Keep the trunk clear to about 2 to 3 feet (60 to 90 cm) on a bush form so you can get underneath it to pick and to mulch.
Resist the urge to correct the shape of an established tree all at once. A neglected tree that needs a lot taken out should be brought back over three seasons, a quarter of the excess at a time, with pruning always in the summer window.
Use clean, sharp tools and cut to a bud or to the branch collar, never leaving a stub. A stub dies back and becomes the entry point for the canker you were trying to avoid by pruning in summer in the first place.
The pruning notes worth keeping
Pruning is the one job where memory fails completely from one year to the next. Write down the date you pruned, roughly how much you took out, which limbs you removed, and where you cut a tired spur system back to. Then note the following winter how heavily that part of the tree flowered.
Two or three seasons of that gives you something no general guide can: how hard your particular tree, on your soil, wants to be cut. Trees on vigorous rootstocks and rich ground need more taken out each summer than the same kind on poor thin soil, and only your own notes will tell you which you have.