TL;DR – how to prune these down to much smaller in the best way?
We recently moved into our first house and there are 4 large, established trees – 2 pear and 2 apples. They are all quite overgrown (in my opinion). They are probably 6m tall.
They all produce heavy fruit which got all eaten by the Cockies as they're too large to net. We want to cut these down to maybe 3m maximum so there is a) less fruit in total and b) fruit within reach and nettable
I know nothing about pruning trees like this.
by currawong_1
1 Comment
If they’re deciduous (drop leaves in winter) then wait until winter unless there’s branches broken.
Look up RHS Pruning and they have a good website. You will need to prune down bulk (crown reduction) and then thin out branches but the fruit trees aspect involves a little more as you want more air flow than a regular tree.
Happy to help a little more if need be. Bottom line: don’t prune yet.
Source: I teach people how to prune.