Ha! I agree there is so much conflicitng advice that I am inclined to belive its an art rather than a science. Hopefully someone with more knowledge can provide some insight.

From Stark:

" Most trees produce fruit on the previous year’s long stems and on short
branches (spurs), each of which will bear fruit for several years. Each
year, cut out a portion of the older fruiting wood to keep rejuvenating
the tree. Prune back each of last year’s stems to half their length."

Exactly what I wanted to know....

Thanks

The link to the Starkbros article that gardengal48 gave is good and informative definitely take a look at that.

A lot of advice for timing of when to prune varies by region/country and the climate. Generally what I do:

- Prune out any crossing branches

- Prune out branches that grow towards the center of the tree, you want branches to grow out instead of in (very important to good structure)

- Generally It's best to prune late winter when it's still dormant but no more really harsh freezes and should be a dry couple of days.

- Midsummer is fine if you need to give it a light pruning for whatever reason as long as it is dry and no rain forecasted for a few days (very important) to avoid disease problems. But pruning should be light not to stress out the tree, more harder pruning is best when tree is dormant.

- Also avoid pruning in the fall and spring (usually fall and spring is wetter which = more disease problems, and can cause a flush of new growth in fall that doesn't have time to harden off before winter and gets damaged/killed. And in spring it's more likely to stress it out since it is actively growing, and that energy it put in to just grow that new branch which suddenly gets cut off just wastes the trees energy.

As I said, my citation from Stark gave the answer as to how to prune relative to fruit production. Fruit occurs on last year's new growth. Therefore the best time to trim a fruit tree is shortly after bloom allowing the year to encourage new branch production.

Aggressively trim branches growing up because you will not be able to reach the fruit.

The biggest reason to not prune in the fall is because you will stimulate new growth which, most likely, will not survive the cold. A reason not to prune a stone fruit tree in the winter as it promotes disease. How it does that is a mystery and is still up for research.

It is interesting that the article mentioned to cut a branch just above an outside bud but they never mentioned why.

Another hint I learned and practice is if you have suckers at the base of the tree and want to stop them, snap the branch off instead of cutting. When you use pruning shears, you break cell walls that will weep until healed. When you snap them, they tend to break along cell walls. (not unlike preparing lettuce for a salad). I guess it sends a different message to the tree in what happened to the branch. It works for me.

"It is interesting that the article mentioned to cut a branch just above an outside bud but they never mentioned why."

Because cutting directly above an outward facing bud will direct growth in that direction. And that is the desire pruning result - branches and stems that grow towards the exterior of the canopy, rather than into the center.

I didn't know, so I trimmed a cherry tree into a ball top to be pretty in a rose garden this spring, and I got no cherries this year.

Were there any flowers? It could work although the ball as a feature will reduce the number of cherries. Are you sure it is a fruit bearing tree? Still, next year's fruit will grow on this year's new branches.

Thanks Gary. There were no flowers when I trimmed it. When we moved in last year I found 1 cherry on the tree, unless it was something else, not a cherry tree. Still new to country living, only part time here on the weekends and vacation. Previous owner left me some owsome fruit trees. Will take a photo when I go outside.

How about a photo of a leaf and the bark on a branch. Are you sure it had a cherry on it? Was it edible? The reddish color leaves makes me ask if it could it be a crab apple?

Could also be a purple leaf plum, Prunus cerasifera, which frequently will produce a small, cherry-sized fruit.

Here are more photos:

Looking like a crab apple. Could still be cherry. Crab = pink flowers, Cherry = white.

If it is a Plum: Chop it out, burn it. Aphids kill the leaves, Plum Curculio infests the fruit, Japanese beetles, Rust Mites, and Black Knot fungus. I had three trees, produced well for only two years in ten. June drop will have you picking up rotting fruit by the hundreds least you feed more rot and insects. Then there are the birds....

Sensitive nerve here? Yep. There may be improved varieties but I would not risk it.

Thanks. It looks like a Prunus cerasifera. It's a plum tree after all. It's far from the small orchard ( at least an acre away, the other side of house), but not too far from an apple tree which it's in the middle a circular driveway, I only got 2-3 apples on it this year. Should I chop this Prunus cerasifera? Just put solar lights on it last night to make it looks pretty in the dark. It helps the rose garden from looking flat. Somehow I didn't see any flowers this spring, there is no fruits on it just checked again. Chop it? Why it's so painful to do it though.........

No reason to remove if you like it. Like many other trees in this genus, prone to a number of insect and disease issues, but yours looks in decent shape. Pruning to keep to that size and shape will be an ongoing issue, though.

Depending on when you pruned, you might have inadvertently removed this season's flowers. And no flowers means no fruit, although this is considered an ornamental plum and not one grown for its fruit, which can be sparse to nonexistent in some years anyway

If it came from an orchard then it may be reliable.
Give it a few years then decide. If you chop it to a 2' tall stump, you can set a sculpture on it or make it a seat.

In January, chop out the center and anything growing up or crossing other branches. The openness will attract bug eating birds. Look into "Surround". It places a thin layer of clay that deters insects and is totally inert. It does wash off so you will have to reapply as needed.

Sorry to add: Night lights attract harmful insects to nest in your yard.

"Night lights attract harmful insects to nest in your yard."

Never heard that observation before and it would certainly put paid to the entire concept of landscape lighting!! Do you have anything to support this contention?

Thanks Gardengal. I treated the whole rose garden with Bayer tree and shrub last month when I saw rose midge damage, so the tree got the treatment too for being in the rose garden. I will replace it with Polar Joy rose trees when I can find any next year. I have 25 Polar Joy trees at the other location, but they're in good size, hard to dig them up.

I have read about it in several locations. I will look it up again.

OTOH, It would be a moot point if you are still using insecticides. You can be happy with night lighting and kill everything off with chemicals.

They do deter lightning bugs/fire flies. I prefer to hear crickets, click beetles, cicadas, and locusts. None of which like night lights. Distant street lights are OK especially the new ones.

Thanks Gary, I will chop it next year, replace it with a rose trees.

Are you joking about ""Night lights attract harmful insects to nest in your yard."?

The place is full of solar lights and patio lights, it's sooo dark in the country at night. There are black bears in the woods per one of the neighbors. I have about 5,000 solar lights, they keep deer away from roses and I can see at night.

There is no organic way to kill rose midge, roses won't have blooms with rose midge damage. I started a organic rose garden this year until the midge damage showed up. The rose garden is far from the orchard.

You probably should take this to the Rose forum. You will get the support from the experienced. I have had roses for 10 years or so and only minimal problem with Japanese beetles. After applying Milky Spore through the lawn, they seem to have disappeared.

Do your solar lights last all night? How about motion triggered water spray? At least they will water the garden and keep away smaller pests too.

Neither solar nor LED lights attract bugs. Incandescent lights can but it is only the light that attracts them.....it doesn't induce them to set up housekeeping.......... :-))

I am on the rose forum. I grow over 1000 roses at other location. :-)

It's a nice tree.

The only problem I see would be that pruning might be tough and eventually it might shade out the roses.

Not really a fan of people who advocate to chop down healthy trees.

But It's up too you but with or without the tree you are probably still going to have trouble with pests or diseases since it's all roses and once one gets ill it's easier for it to spread rose to rose to rose. And you will still get aphids and japanese beetles...they LOVE roses.

If you do decide to get rid of the tree, it's not very big so think about posting an ad that if someone wants your ornamental tree they can come by and dig it up and give it a new home, plenty of people do this in my town and plenty of people have nothing against a free larger tree for their yard than what they get at a local box store.

Also I would suggest if you are removing it, replace it with a tree or something that is not related to roses (no rose tree). Diversity is important for a garden, if something happens to your roses it likely won't spread to an unrelated tree but will to another rose bush. It's easier to replace a sick/dying rose bush than it is to lose an established tree that takes a long time to reach its full beauty.

Thanks A W. Maybe I keep it in the rose garden, it does look nice there. I just planted a small cherry tree last month to balance it out on the other side of rose garden.

Gary, the solar lights last all night in three seasons, but not during the snowing weather. I use 72' 200 lights solar string lights. They're very good so far.

https://www.amazon.com/Binval-Christmas-Ambiance-Lighting-Landscape/dp/B06WWM76M8/ref=sr_1_4?s=lamps-light&ie=UTF8&qid=1531521096&sr=1-4&keywords=solar+string+lights+outdoor

I also have plug in LED string lights, shiny ribbons to keep deer away.