Question from Dan
I live in Massachusetts.I recently pruned my two 11year old trees because they were getting way to big. I topped them at about 6 feet. my mother in law fears that I may have ruined them. they have plenty of new growth on them. I read your comment to a reader about manure and mulch, If i put these things down now will it promote more new growth and healthier peaches?

Answer from Pat:
It is never a good idea to whack at any tree without knowing what one is doing, but this is particularly true with deciduous fruit trees. Pruning fruit trees is an art that takes years to learn but which anyone can do pretty well by getting a pruning book, reading it and following the instructions. There are many good instructive University Extension websites that help with this also. Deciduous fruit trees should never be pruned at this time of year and you don’t say exactly when you topped them, but any pruning should be done in late winter, in Massachusetts, while the tree is dormant and never while the tree is actively growing except to take off water sprouts in August. (Water sprouts are new shoots which spring straight up like a buggy whips from the tops of the scaffold branches in summer. Take them off each year in August.)

If one wants to lower the height of a tree, and specifically let’s say that of a peach tree, then one should do this in late winter and spread the job over several years. The correct way to lower the height of any tree is not to top a tree, as you did, but to cut the high portions back to a side branch. This way the tree will not be stimulated to grow higher still. You could perhaps have done this successfully with your overly-tall peach trees and then you would not have ruined them. It is always wrong to cut straight through branches with no thought as to how or where you make the cut because this leaves stubs which then can become diseased and also they tend to sprout with many sprouts, and though you are not very specific it sounds as if that might have happened.

The problem with “topping” a tree is that this action usually produces a proliferation of sprouts from the top that you then will have cut off and this is the exact opposite of the effect you wanted to accomplish. Topping trees of any type is always a bad practice, except in the case of pollarding willows and sycamore trees. Pollarding has been done for thousands of years in Europe (and occasionally in America) and has to be done by an experienced pruner on willow trees or a sycamore trees only and for the specific purpose of producing an annual harvest of wood for use in farming or as firewood while keeping the trees to a manageable size. Pollarded sycamores have a formal appearance, useful for providing shade for outdoor cafe’s and garden terraces. When properly done, pollarded trees develop knobs covered by bark on the end of short scaffold branches and the trees cannot be blown over in wind. The trees will live several hundred years while producing annual harvests of wood for use as firewood or straight garden stakes, fence posts, and in the case of willows, wattle fences.

But back to your fruit trees, manure and mulch will not correct the damage. The damage you have done is to destroy the shape of the tree and it’s growth habit and open up large cuts that can provide spots for rot, disease, and pests to enter. Though peach trees need heavier pruning than other deciduous fruit trees, the cutting you did may interrupt fruiting or produce fruit in the wrong places. The best thing you can do now is to purchase a good pruning book with photos or drawings of fruit trees and explanations of correct pruning and shaping for peach trees. This winter after leaves have fallen, use dormant spray and begin to study and think about the shape of the trees and consider carefully how to begin working them into a better shape and keeping them low. Later on in late winter, study the trees again and try to correct the pruning. Don’t do it all at once. It may take several years, and don’t cut too early since this will open up your tree to winter damage.