Prune it now. If you want to study summer pruning search for Jellyman's posts on this forum on the subject.

Pears do seem to grow agressively. Summer pruning on a tree such as you describe is very appropriate; I think you'll want to do some dormant pruning as well, but I'll defer to Don (Jellyman) and others on that.

Be prepared to continue pruning when it breaks dormancy also.

This summer and next just remove everything that's in the wrong place (such as too crowded or growing straight up or straight down.) After that you should have some breathing room and you'll probably keep it to size with less effort. But next year you'll have a lot of fresh growth to subdue, and you'll be pruning it a little almost all the time.

Remember, that tree has the ability to put out a huge number of branches. If you take the wrong one off, well, the tree will offer you a replacement, so there's room for error. Study what the tree offers, and it gets clearer, ay?

Good luck,

M

Flowernut:

If you have a pear tree that is 20 feet tall at five years of age, you have one hell of a pear tree. The only similar story I have heard was about Jack and a certain beanstalk. If it were mine, I would prune it down now, in the dormant season, in spring, or at any time I happened to be out there in the yard with a pruning saw and/or a pruning shears. Get it down to about 12 feet or less, and keep it there, and s-p-r-e-a-d those branches so it is as wide as it is tall. The best time for branch spreading is early spring when the branches are more flexible.

The best time to prune with size limitation in mind is mid to late summer, but now is better than nothing. Summer pruning will not only slow down the vigor of a tree, but encourage the development of fruiting sites. Don't wait. Do it now.

If this tree begins to bear as well as it grows upward, you could have an awful lot of Bartlett pears in your future.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

jellyman when I prune my pear tree, should I cut back all the upward growing branches that grow off of the outward growing limbs, they look like sucker growth. I am hoping to get a nice crop of pears on of these days, my kids love them. This year they were small and a bit puckered. Is brown scabbing normal to back yeard pear trees? I also have an unrelated question about black berries, should I prune them back to four feet before winter or leave them?

Flowernut:

The vertical growth from lateral branches is called watersprouts, and yes, they should generally be pruned off. However, leave a few, say one of every 4 or 5, cut back to 4-6 inches. These will often convert to fruiting wood when the pruning is done in summer.

Small pears may be due to failure to thin. Pears should be thinned to the one best, perfect fruit per blossom cluster. Multiple pears, when 4-5 set in a blossom cluster, will never achieve decent size. That is one of the reasons for keeping the height of a tree down -- the ability to reach all the fruit to thin it. Thinning should be done very early in the season when the pears are still very small, but large enough for you to identify the best one in a cluster.

Puckering and brown scabbing are common, but no, these conditions will not permit the production of edible pears. To produce something you want to eat, they must be nearly perfect. If your tree is infected with a fungal disease like scab, you should spray it several times during the dormant season, and early in the fruiting season, with a fungicide such as copper. Consult your local nurseryman to see what is available that will work on pear scab. You may not have any experience with spraying, or even own a sprayer, but if you want to produce edible pears you will have to buy a sprayer and learn. Crowding of limbs and dense, leafy growth encourage fungal diseases, so your pruning may also help alleviate this condition.

After you learn to grow perfect pears, the next step is to learn when to pick them and how to ripen them in refrigeration before taking them out for final ripening on the kitchen counter. European pears like Bartlett cannot be allowed to fully ripen on the tree, or they will rot from the inside out. That could be the subject of another thread, but we will leave it for later. First, you have to grow the pears.

Blackberry canes (floricanes) that have borne fruit the past season should be cut back right to ground level. New canes that have grown in this past season (primocanes) should be cut back to 4 feet or a little less. When pruned back, they will produce more fruiting laterals, and be less likely to topple over, increasing your total crop.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

jellyman, thanks for the GREAT info, you sound like a pro. I am a want to plant everything back yard gardener learning as I go, so thanks. I got a good start on my pruning job today and plan on doing more tomorrow. I also have ageorga peach planted 2 years ago and a couple cherries planted just this year. any advice on the cherries, they are small. I also have been experimenting with blue berries, 3 different types. All are about 2 ft. this year they were hit with a late season frost.
laurie.

Flowernut:

No, I am not a pro. Just a backyard gardener like you. But I am an old backyard gardener.

If the peach you planted is a Belle of Georgia, that is an older white peach variety that you may find very difficult to grow. White peaches are more susceptible to late-season brown rots, as well as diseases like bacterial spot. The list of insect and disease problems affecting peaches is very long, and you may not see all of them but you will see some. I don't recall just where you are located (Chicago?), and you should specify that in every post, but if it is the Chicago area I would have recommended Redhaven as the best peach for a beginner. If your tree ever sets peaches, the thinning advice applies to them as well as your pears, although peaches do not set in clusters, and peach trees should always be kept pruned to an open center to admit plenty of light and air circulation to the fruit.

As for cherries, there are sweet cherries and sour cherries, and of the two types sour are much the easier to grow. Sweet cherries are early to bloom, difficult to pollinate, subject to late freezes, tend to crack at ripening time, and very attractive to birds. Sweet cherry trees are the single most attractive tree to deer (plums might be second) if you have those beasts around. When you say you planted cherries, you should specify which type you planted, as well as the variety if you know it, since there are significant differences in the performance of cherry varieties. All cherry trees, and other stone fruits as well, are subject to diseases such as bacterial canker, which leads to sap leakage and the eventual death of limbs. These diseases can usually be controlled or even eliminated with timely spraying during the dormant season.

If you are growing blueberries, and the Ph of your soil is naturally a little high, you will have to use acidifiers such as iron sulphate to grow healthy plants and fruit. Fertilizers should also be specific for acid-loving plants, and never nitrate-based fertilizers.

Good luck out there. It's not easy to grow backyard fruit, but it's very satisfying when you finally get it right. Next time you post, try to include a few more specifics about your trees and you may get advice better targeted to your needs and situation.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Hey jellyman sorry for the lack of info. my blueberries are Jersey, Blue Jay and Duke in varity. My cherry trees are Bing and white gold, both are sweet. My peach was taged only saying Georga peach, I do not believe it is a white peach. Looks like all the tasty stuff is going to be a challange to grow successfully. We do not have deer near by but lots of squirles and racoons.

Thanks Laurie
you are not an "old" gardener but a "wise" one.

Laurie:

The word "Georga" as the name of a peach variety does not compute. Perhaps the label was prepared by someone who does not know how to spell. "Georgia" makes more sense, and the only common variety I know of with this word in its name is Belle of Georgia. It is a white peach.

Bing is a West Coast cherry, and one of the most difficult of all varieties to grow in the East and Midwest because of pollination difficulties and cracking. Lapins would have been a better choice for a dark cherry. White Gold may produce some fruit, but it will not have the flavor and quality of cherries you can buy at the market in season.

You have not mentioned the source of your fruit trees, but if it is a local bigbox store like Home Depot, that is not the best place to buy nursery stock since you can only choose from what they happen to have on a given day. These stores are not fruit tree specialists, and they will sell things that have no real chance of producing in their locality. The potted and rootballed trees they sell are also inferior to the bareroot trees sold by mailorder and online nurseries specialized in fruit trees, and are often tall, spindly, and less vigorous growers than bareroot trees planted in early spring.

The best way to buy nursery stock is by studying the variety lists and descriptions of mailorder and/or online nurseries, and selecting those varieties most appropriate for your region, based on advice from local growers or forums like this one. You may end up spending a little more, but not much considering that growing fruit trees is a long-term investment in time and effort, and you might as well give yourself every chance for success even it if costs another $5 per tree.

Squirrels are another issue that has filled many threads on this forum, and make many fruit growers shudder. Squirrels really, really like fruit trees.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA