We are the proud owners of a mature sweet cherry tree that came with the property we bought many years ago. I garden, but don't do food gardening, and the only thing I know about pruning fruit trees is that there are right and wrong ways to do it. We didn't do anything at all to our tree and for years got magnificent cherries from it; then four or five years ago my husband cut most of the top out of the tree leaving the lower spreading branches. Until this year, no cherries, which may have had to do with the shock of pruning, and definitely owed something to several episodes of hail.

This year the tree has given us a crop again--and they're the best cherries in the world--but I know it needs attention. My understanding is that you need to be sparing with pruning cherry trees. The tree now has vertical branches three to five years old, too tall to reach their fruit even with a tall ladder, and which are shading out the lower growth. I want to reshape and lower the tree, and do any needful renewal pruning. I need to know when to prune, and what to cut out, if necessary over more than one year. I want a healthy, unstressed tree; I don't require that the tree bear as heavily as it can be made to do, since it produces all we need for family consumption. We live in Italy and summers are dry here. The tree is not irrigated. If anyone can help me with this, I'll need technical terms translated as I know nothing about fruit tree cultivation. Thanks.

P.S. I don't know if this would affect anything, but we're having a severe drought here that doesn't look likely to end soon. The tree is already stressed for this reason. I mention it in case it should make a difference in what to do.