My first full season of trying to prune and retrain some of these trees that were left to grow wild and then overrun with vines. Big insights from this year:




• spring/old wood vs. summer/new wood blooming matters a lot, actually

• I shouldn’t feel bad about cutting branches that started as vertical suckers but now form part of the canopy; they got that far cause there’s tempting sunlight there and better-positioned branches will grow in to fill quickly

• in reverse, if I want to grow back an empty or misshapen patch that’s not at the canopy I have to thin the layer above to let in some sun. this is a big problem regrowing stuff that’s been overshadowed by larger trees since original trunk growth