Important Note: Its very important to know that there is a big difference between plants we grow for ornamental purposes and planes we grow for food production. Plants chosen and bred to look good in a garden bed are often a pleasing shape and proportion, and others have colours or flowers we like but they can usually all be manipulated, with some care, into the kind of picture-book shape we imagine that trees and shrubs are supposed to be... Food producing plants are different. While some are undoubtedly attractive in their untamed form, most of the really useful and productive plants are nowhere near as compact dense and bushy as their cosmetically enhanced cousins... One of the challenges for gardeners who are new to food growing, especially those who have a long history of growing ornamental plants, is to resist the urge to constantly tidy your plants... There are only three reasons to prune a fruiting tree or bush: One, to control size. This covers pruning for ease of harvest, and for pest control. Also, we sometimes prune trees to control the direction of growth, especially those that like to grow straight up! Or we may want to train it into a particular shape for espalier.. Two, to keep the plant healthy by allowing proper airflow and adequate sunlight to reach all fruiting branches, and to remove dead branches and prevent disease. Three, for practical reasons such as not hitting your head on it or filling the gutter with leaves! Everything else is just pfaffing about, and irrespective of the reams of shoulds, oughts, and tradition you have read or been told, there are NO good reasons that do not fall into one of the other of the above. There is neither any need to fiddle constantly with your plants, in an attempt to make them pretty, nor is it helpful, and in most cases it actually interferes with the plants natural desires and growth habit and will impact negatively on the crop size and health of the plant. So by all means look after your babies, but please, let them be what they are meant to be and embrace their weird and asymmetrical growth choices.... They will be much happier and productive in the long run. ☺️
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 08:16:01 +0000
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