Winter gardening is an excellent opportunity to take care of the health and condition of plants in the coming year. Although the garden may seem dormant, Right now it is worth reaching for a pruner and trimming trees and shrubs that are dormant and tolerate low temperatures well..
In January, we cut trees that are resistant to frost. These include apple, pear and plum trees. Gardeners recommend doing this at the end of the month, but we cannot perform this procedure during severe frosts.
Previously, the worst frosts occurred in December. Recent years have shown that we can also deal with them in January or February. If such a situation arises, then it is worth waiting with pruning even until mid-February. Otherwise, even the most cold-resistant plants will suffer wounds around the cut.
We form a crown for apple trees, leaving 70-80 cm from the ground from the first branch. In older trees, we remove old branches and lighten the crown.
It is best to prune pear trees by thinning out too dense shoots and those growing vertically or towards the center of the crown.. However, do not remove more than 1/5 of the crown’s volume. Let’s shorten the small branches above the bud, but leave the main, lower ones.
When cutting plum trees, we remove branches that are too dense, those growing to the center of the crown, and those that are damaged, frozen or diseased.. We leave the small, well-branched ones with short shoots. We start cutting from the upper parts of the tree, lowering the crown by about 1.5 meters and thinning out the middle of several branches. Strong shoots growing vertically should also be cut out.
All cuts are made with a sharp tool. We must protect the wounds with horticultural ointment.
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The deadline for cutting bushes is the same as for fruit trees. The weather is important here and we must constantly monitor it.
In winter, we cut frost-resistant bushes, i.e. red currant, blueberry, gooseberry, sea buckthorn and actinidia. How to perform this treatment on each of these plants?
Red currant, bearing fruit on last year’s and several-year-old shoots, we need to x-ray, i.e. remove all branches that are more than 3 years old, as well as the weak ones growing downwards. The cutting is the same in the case of gooseberries.
Blueberries bear fruit on 2- and 3-year-old shoots, that’s why We carry out this procedure on a number of older branches. All this to encourage her to release these young ones.
Do not prune sea buckthorn too much. We only remove weak, withered and crossing shoots. In turn, in the case of actinidia we shorten the side branches into 8-10 buds. Then young shoots will grow from them, which will bear fruit next year.
