Pruning and Training Summer Fruit: Shape Your Trees for Better Harvests

🌱 GrowMore CookMore App

Know what to sow, when to harvest, and discover recipes for your garden produce.

Pruning. Now there’s a word that strikes fear into the hearts of beginner gardeners. And honestly, it used to terrify me too. I’d stand in front of my apple tree with a pair of secateurs and just… freeze. What if I cut the wrong bit? What if I kill it? What if it never fruits again because I’ve butchered it? So I’d do nothing. For about three years I did absolutely nothing and the tree turned into a complete mess — branches going everywhere, crossing each other, loads of small, rubbish fruit because the energy was spread too thin. Turns out doing nothing is actually worse than doing something wrong. Who knew?

So eventually I asked Ronny to show us, because Ronny’s got fruit trees that produce so much fruit he’s basically running a small orchard. And you know what he said? “It’s not brain surgery, man. Just take out anything that’s dead, diseased, or in the way.” And that’s honestly about 80% of pruning right there. The other 20% is a bit more specific depending on what you’re growing, but the principle is the same — you’re just giving the plant more light and air, and directing its energy into fewer, better fruits.

Why Summer Pruning Matters

Summer pruning is all about control. Trees and bushes are growing like mad right now — putting out new shoots, sending energy in all directions. If you leave them to it, you get a tangled mess. By pruning now, you’re redirecting that energy into fruit production instead of pointless leafy growth. Think of it like this — a tree has a finite amount of energy. Every unnecessary branch is stealing energy from the fruit. Less branches, better fruit. Simple as that.

It also improves air circulation through the canopy, which helps prevent fungal diseases. And it lets more light in to ripen the fruit evenly. Have you ever picked an apple that’s red on one side and green on the other? That’s because the green side was in shadow. Open up the canopy and you get properly ripened, evenly coloured fruit all over.

Pruning Apple and Pear Trees

For trained forms — espaliers, cordons, fans, step-overs — summer pruning is essential. This is what keeps them in shape and productive. The timing is roughly late July to August for apples and pears. You’re looking for this year’s new growth — the shoots that have grown since spring, which are lighter coloured and more flexible than the darker, harder older wood.

The technique for trained trees: find the new side shoots growing from the main framework branches. Count back to the third leaf cluster above the basal cluster (that’s the rosette of leaves right at the base of the shoot where it joins the main branch). Cut just above the third cluster. That’s it. Every side shoot, same treatment. It sounds fiddly when you describe it but when you’re actually standing in front of the tree, it makes sense.

For free-standing apple and pear trees, summer pruning is less essential but still helpful. Focus on removing any shoots growing straight up through the middle of the tree (water sprouts — they’re useless, just remove them), any branches that are crossing or rubbing against each other, and anything that’s clearly diseased or dead. Don’t go mad — you’re tidying, not demolishing.

I’ve got a Bramley apple tree on the allotment that I nearly ruined by over-pruning one year. Took off about a third of the canopy because I got a bit carried away. It went into shock and barely produced anything the following year. The tree forgave me eventually but it took two seasons to recover. Lesson learned — little and often, not hack-and-hope.

Dealing with Soft Fruit

Soft fruit — gooseberries, currants, and jostaberries — benefit from summer pruning too. The main job is to open up the bush so air can circulate (preventing mildew, which gooseberries are particularly prone to) and so you can actually reach the fruit when it’s time to pick. Have you ever tried picking gooseberries from an unpruned bush? It’s like reaching into a bag of angry hedgehogs. Thorns everywhere.

For gooseberries and red/white currants, shorten all the side shoots to about five leaves. This lets light in to ripen the fruit and starts forming the fruit buds for next year. Remove any branches that are growing into the centre of the bush or hanging on the ground. You want an open goblet shape — like a wine glass made of branches.

Blackcurrants are different — they fruit on last year’s wood, so you want to encourage new growth rather than cutting it back. Just remove any really old, dark, unproductive branches at the base to make room for the new stuff. I take out about a quarter of the oldest stems each year. Keeps the bush productive and renewing itself.

Training New Growth

Summer is also the time to train any new growth on your fruit trees and trained forms. New shoots are flexible now and can be gently tied into position. Try this in winter when they’ve hardened off and they’ll snap. Ask me how I know. Actually, don’t.

For espaliers and fans, tie in the new leader growth along the horizontal wires, keeping everything neat and evenly spaced. For cordons, tie the main leader to its support and cut back any side shoots as described above. The aim is to keep the shape you want while directing the tree’s energy where you need it.

I use soft garden twine for tying — nothing too tight, you don’t want to strangle the branches as they thicken. I check all my ties twice a year and loosen any that are getting tight. Neglect this and you end up with wire cutting into the bark, which is an invitation for disease. I had a branch on my pear espalier where the wire had almost completely cut through the bark before I noticed. Saved it just in time with some careful loosening and a bit of wound paint. That was a close one.

Strawberry Runner Management

If you’ve got strawberries — and you should, they’re dead easy and the kids love them — summer is when they go mad sending out runners. Runners are those long trailing stems with a baby plant at the end. The mother plant is trying to reproduce. Very admirable. But if you let every runner grow, the mother plant’s energy goes into making babies instead of making fruit.

If you want more strawberry plants (and who doesn’t — free plants!), select the strongest three or four runners per plant and peg them into small pots of compost placed next to the mother plant. Once they’ve rooted — usually takes about three to four weeks — cut them free and you’ve got new plants for a new bed. If you don’t want more plants, just cut all the runners off as they appear. It sounds harsh but the mother plant will thank you with bigger, better fruit.

I propagate a dozen or so new strawberry plants this way every year and use them to replace the oldest plants in my strawberry bed. Strawberries produce best in their second and third year — after that, yields decline. So I keep a rolling cycle of new plants coming through. Audrey taught us that system and it works perfectly. She’s basically the allotment professor. We should give her a chair or something.

Tools of the Trade

Good secateurs are worth every penny. Don’t buy cheap ones from the pound shop — they won’t stay sharp, they’ll crush instead of cutting, and they’ll give you blisters. Get a decent pair of bypass secateurs (where the blades pass each other like scissors, not the anvil type where one blade hits a flat surface). Felco are the gold standard but there are good mid-range options too. Keep them clean and sharp — a quick wipe with an oily rag and an occasional sharpen with a whetstone is all they need.

For thicker branches, you’ll want loppers — basically long-handled secateurs for bigger cuts. And a pruning saw for anything too thick for loppers. I’ve got a folding pruning saw that fits in my back pocket and it’s brilliant. Use it more than I probably should. There’s something very satisfying about sawing through a branch. Very primal.

Always clean your tools between plants, especially if you’ve been cutting anything that looked diseased. A quick wipe with disinfectant or methylated spirits stops you spreading infections from one plant to another. It’s one of those things that feels like overkill until the day you spread canker across your entire apple collection and then you’re kicking yourself. Prevention, not cure. Always.

Look after yourselves. Take good care. 🌱