Last fall I bought a couple of young cherry trees locally. My intent is to grow them as Spanish bushes (or something like that). Every instruction I read on this gives some sort of variation on the theme that limbs should be allowed to put on 20-30 inches of growth, cut back to 10-20 inches.
Now these trees already have limbs that are three feet and longer; however they have not put on any new growth. Is it better to cut them back now, before they start growing? Or should I leave them alone until they start growing and then cut them back? I am leaning towards the latter, but would appreciate the input of those with experience.
Thanks for prompting me - I left out some background.
When I took the cherry trees out of their very large pots, they were rootbound. I suspect that the trees are now compensating for all that comes with that* and are now working on balancing the roots with the above ground vegetation. My reasoning for the second option above is that when the roots are up to where they need to be, above ground growth will take place as well; right now the added leaves are of benefit for supplying the energy for root growth. Hence the branches should not be pruned until after branch growth is initiated, which will indicate the roots are ready to support growth. (Gisela 5 rootstock.)
What else I am seeing that seems to support that argument is in some little plum trees. By accident I ended up with two plum trees of the same variety, same rootstock. (These came bare root.) One was nicely branched, the other was smaller, had less root system, and had poor branches. The larger, nicely branched one was planted as-is. The other, which I considered an extra, got chopped off low. Since then the larger, nicely branched one has not shown much of any growth, while the poor specimen has grown dramatically.
Of course my reasoning could be very wrong, and I don't know what else I am not considering, so I value the input of this board.
* Trying to fix/free roots is pretty traumatic for me, and since doing this I haven't grown at all either.
The only experience I've had with root-bond trees was with a couple of nectarines. Did you thoroughly loosen-up the rootball before planting? Also, pruning the roots would have encouraged new root growth. The two nectarines did have new growth the first year but did not take off until the second. I did some corrective branch shaping when I planted them but that was all. Gilsea 5 is the most dwarfting rootstock and probably will not get 30 inches of growth even after the trees are established.
I lack confidence that I did a good job with the roots. First fruit trees! Now of course I have an overpowering urge* to dig them up and make them perfect.
My thinking is that the roots are growing now and limbs will come later. The question is when would it be appropriate for me to cut the existing limbs back to induce more branching.
* Yeah right.
Previously on this site, the recommendation for pruning cherries has been in the summer. So, now that the weather has dried out, probably a good time would be in the next two weeks or so. That allows enough time to get new growth and allow it to harden for the winter before the fall rains hit.
Yeah, there was no way that I was going to cut them in the rainy weather. I think you may have a good point that usually pruning to balance above and below ground growth is done when trees are dormant, and as early as practical. Maybe the start of the dry season is as close as we can get to that with cherries.
Thanks for the discussion!
I believe it is best to prune a young tree if you remove much of the roots. The idea is to balance the roots and top growth.
I don't prune unless I have damaged the root system much.
I'm not confident enough in this that I would advise it to you, but that is what I do.
Many trees can be pruned in the summer. I would prefer the summer for cherries: dry and reduces growth.
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