Top Fruit Pruning | Orchard Notes

Stepover Apple Trees: Winter Pruning, Year Three

I’ve been shunning the standard advice and only winter pruning trained apple trees for three years now. Here’s how it’s going.

I’ve pruned two very different crab apples this year – here’s how I approached each one, and the results of the work.

Sometimes a drastic tree health problem like apple canker requires a fairly drastic pruning remedy.

A follow-up to last year’s stepover winter pruning post, with details of re-growth and this year’s pruning.

A grey but dry and hugely enjoyable Sunday afternoon was well spent on helping to finish off this year’s winter pruning work.

Here’s how I went about the first phase of restorative pruning on a mature apple three that has been sadly neglected for a few years.

Here’s how I pruned three stepover trees on our allotment plot, leaving them until January rather than pruning in late summer as usually advised.

On a grey and drizzly afternoon I spent a happy few hours helping to winter prune a few of the trees in Holly Mount community orchard.

Improving the branch structure of an overgrown and crowded plum tree on our allotment plot.