Peach, Cherry, Pear pruning?

9 years ago

Hello. I'm hoping for some pruning advice on a few fruit trees. I planted a SD Reliance Peach, Evans Cherry, and (?) Pear tree in 2010, and a few years ago I planted a second Reliance Peach. All were supposed to be very hardy and self-fruitful. I tried to read up on pruning and decided to be conservative and only removed crossing branches... then two years ago the older peach had a bunch of water sprouts so I removed those also. I'm sure these could be pruned better, but I'm hesitant... especially since I read that pears hate to be pruned. What should I do with these?

Here's the two peach trees... the 3 yo, from a stick, is in the foreground. Both seem to grow about 6 feet a year, so I don't have a clue what to do with them. They certainly aren't the "semi-dwarf" size/shape that I expected. lol! AFAIK, only the older one has ever bloomed -- twice -- and that was a few years ago. It set a small number of peaches both years, but they disappeared early on... just dropped the fruit, I think.

This is the cherry.... it blooms and produces nicely.

And here's the pear -- I've never seen it bloom. :(

Any advice on what I should be doing with these?

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Comments (3)

TurkeyCreekTrees Zone 5B
9 years ago
Cherry and pear look fine. Looks like you should see some blossoms on the pear this year. Your failure to keep the peaches under control when they were first planted let them get to that height. Peaches can be pruned fairly heavy every year if you start with that mindset. If you cut those peaches way back now they may not create many new limbs
party_music50 thanked TurkeyCreekTrees Zone 5B
Jean
9 years ago
use this phrase on your favorite search engine, but omit the quote marks:

"pruning and training fruit trees site:edu"
party_music50 thanked Jean
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party_music50
Original Author
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
TurkeyCreekTrees, thank you for your reply! That is surprisingly good news to hear about the cherry and pear!!! I was afraid that I was supposed to top them and remove all kinds of branches or something. I couldn't bring myself to cut back the cherry because I knew I'd be losing some fruit, but I am wondering if it's a good idea to tip back the branches to control the length and height? As the cherry stands, I can reach all of the fruit by standing on a 3-step stool... I'm not sure that will be true next year if I don't hold it back somehow. Re the pear, is it true that they HATE pruning of any kind? And, yes, the peaches are probably useless at this point, but I didn't have a clue how to prune them because of the speed and direction they grew. I'd love to do a separate post about the "flowering crab" I planted that turned out to be a really good-tasting apple tree! lol!

Jean, thank you for the search tip! I'm off to look now....