Pruning cherry

[mrbadexample]

Hi,

I have a morello cherry that I'm attempting to fan train on a north facing fence.

Some bits are growing the way I want, and some aren't. When can I remove the ones that aren't, and is it just a case of chopping them off near the branch?

Thanks,
MBE

[burnie]

Seems now is he time to be pruning, not grown them myself but this might help
https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=318

[nickdub]

Any really soft new growth can be cut off now no problem, though personally I prefer to bend branches on cherries not cut them off, because that's where the flowers and hopefully the fruit will grow next year. Big older branches are always a risky thing to cut out, because if disease gets in to the cut surface it can kill the tree - the risk of this is less in the early summer months if the tree are growing strongly, but I wouldn't want to risk it on any of my trees.

[mrbadexample]

Any really soft new growth can be cut off now no problem, though personally I prefer to bend branches on cherries not cut them off, because that's where the flowers and hopefully the fruit will grow next year. Big older branches are always a risky thing to cut out, because if disease gets in to the cut surface it can kill the tree - the risk of this is less in the early summer months if the tree are growing strongly, but I wouldn't want to risk it on any of my trees.

Thanks, I've paused to think about this for a bit. There is only one piece of older wood that I want to remove. It runs behind the middle two right hand branches in the second photo. It's a bit fiddling & small and isn't needed there. Where should I make the cut?

[mrbadexample]

Where I'm struggling is I don't know what the end result should be.

I bought the tree from a garden centre a while back because it seemed a decent shape for a play at fan training. There was nothing growing out of one side of it so suited to a fence.

Obviously it's a bit bigger now. The training has gone quite well and the top of the tree is well above the fence. What do I do with the top now?

I get the idea of fan training but what next? How do I maximise fruit production? I was going to snip off the shoots that are growing the wrong way - should I be keeping these then? There are a couple that are growing straight out that will have to go, but what should I keep please?

[nickdub]

OK the bit I'm certain about first - you can neaten up the small bit of wood at the centre of the red circle now, either with a small saw or a very sharp knife - it won't hurt but it also won’t help, I'd just leave it.

As to your more general questions re training trees - whole books have been and continue to be written on this subject . Also, I have never fan trained any fruit tree though I do understand the main principles. So with that said, my take is that you have a very good example of a standard cherry tree and if it was mine I'd move it somewhere well away from the fence in the Winter and after I'd replanted I'd feed and water it next summer and generally leave it be with the single exception of topping the leader (ie cutting off the highest part at whatever height you fancy) at say 7' next May/June.

Back to your fence - fan training cherries/plums and espalier apples successfully are probably the trickiest things to do in the tree fruit growing world. So you can either spend a load of money on a tree, say 5 years old, to which an expert has given a lot of care and time to establish the framework and hope when you plant it in your garden you can keep it going right. Or if money is a constraint another approach would be to buy say 5 bare root trees on dwarfing stocks in the autumn the cheapest will be whips, ie just one year olds. plant them up somewhere and after say 5 years of efforts on your part if one does look good you could plant that in your spot on the fence and hopefully come back on here to boast about it. the other trees could then be given to gardening friends. Time/money it's an old dichotomy :-)

PS I may be wrong, but I don't think anyone could train your existing cherry into a fan - its the wrong shape now.