My Experience With Pruning Fruit Trees

If you want to extend the life of your tree and encourage it to grow better fruit, you have to prune it. Pruning fruit trees is the thing to do, because that allows sunlight to reach all areas of the tree. Armed with my best sewing scissors and a ladder, I marched right outside swearing I would not call someone to do it for me. I managed to get the ladder opened after thirty minutes and a pinched thumb, and then I climbed right up that thing feeling like Jack on the beanstalk.

Then I reached the first limb, and even though I suddenly realized that I knew nothing about pruning fruit trees, I was sure it wouldn't be too hard. After attempting to cut one of the smaller limbs from my tree, it dawned upon me that scissors weren't going to get the job done. So I borrowed my husband's chain saw.

It had to be more effective than scissors, after all. Except I didn't anticipate how loud it would be! It startled me. I tossed it on the ground. Lucky for me the grass is soft, because I topped off the ladder afterwards. I swore at the stupid chain saw, then we back up the ladder with it. I was prepared this time; I started again.

Once again, I tried cutting that smaller limb. Did you know that chain saws are very sharp? I accidentally took out six limbs and went halfway through another one. Oh man, this really ticked me off. My precious tree! 1/4th of it was on the ground. But I wasn't about to give up, not even after one of the ravaged limbs struck my forehead and left a big scratch.

This time I got out the hedge shears and climbed up the tree itself. How hard can pruning fruit trees possibly be? As I was going up, I kicked over the ladder by accident.

My head was bleeding, there was dirt stuck to my butt, and now I was stuck in that bleeping fruit tree. I was boiling mad by the time my husband found me. My husband was laughing as I made my way back towards the house. I gave one last withering look to the tree and muttered, "Until next year!"

Visit Fruit Tree Nursery and get the tips you need to make pruning Fruit Trees not only easy, but also fun. Plus we got some other great fruit tree advice as well.

- Jessica P