An apple tree is best pruned in July, August and September. By then shoot growth has stopped, the cut surfaces dry quickly and the tree answers calmly instead of throwing up a thicket of water shoots. Winter pruning does the opposite and drives growth, which is right for a young tree but wrong for an old one you want to thin out. The timing decides the result more than the way you hold the saw.
When in the year to prune
The same cut, made in March or in August, gives you two different trees.
| Period | What happens inside the tree | Use the period for |
|---|---|---|
| July to September (summer pruning) | Growth has stopped, the sugars are moving down towards the roots and the wounds callus over before the cold. | Renovating older trees, thick branches, calming strong growth |
| Late January to March | The reserves in the roots push strong new growth towards every cut. | Building the framework of young trees, the first 4-5 years |
| Late April to June | The tree is in blossom and the sap is in full flow. | Nothing beyond rubbing off soft water shoots by hand |
| October to November | Damp, healing has stalled and fungal spores are everywhere. | Nothing. Leave the secateurs in the shed. |
Do not prune in hard frost. Below minus 10°C frozen wood splinters at the cut, and young trees take damage already at minus 5°C. Pick a dry day.
Why summer pruning gives a calmer tree
An apple tree stores its reserves in the roots and the trunk. In winter the whole store sits down there, and when you take branches off a dormant tree you reduce the number of buds that store has to be shared between. The surplus goes into the buds that are left, and the following summer the tree stands full of water shoots 50-100 cm long. In July and August the situation is reversed: the sugars are on their way down and the tree has no reserve to answer with.
An old tree pruned in late summer therefore looks much the same the year after, while a winter pruned one often looks shaggier than it did before. The same period applies to deciduous hedges and to all stone fruit. Plum trees pruned in spring bleed gum and let fungal diseases in through the wounds.
Tools and hygiene
Secateurs: Branches up to about 2 cm. Choose a bypass model where two blades pass each other. Anvil models, where the blade presses against a plate, crush the wood.
Loppers: Branches between 2 and 4 cm.
Pruning saw: Anything thicker than 4 cm. A curved blade that cuts on the pull stroke reaches in among the branches inside the crown.
Sharpness: A blunt blade crushes the wood at the edge of the cut instead of dividing it, and crushed wood heals worse.
Wipe the blade with 70 percent alcohol between trees. Apple canker travels with the sap on the blade and spreads on without you noticing. If the tree has sunken wounds in the bark, wipe between every cut and put the prunings in the bin, not on the compost heap. Cut healthy trees first and diseased ones last. Read more in the article on pests and diseases.
Where to place the cut
Where the branch meets the trunk sits a thickened ring, the branch collar. It holds the cells that build new wood over the wound. Saw just outside the collar so the ring stays whole around the cut surface. The tree then closes the wound from the edge inwards under its own power.
If you saw flush with the trunk you take the collar away with it. The wound ends up wider than the branch was, reaches into the trunk wood and does not heal. That is the most common way in for rot. A stub left behind is just as bad: anything over 1 cm dies back and becomes a peg the fungus grows in through. On thin shoots, cut 3-5 mm above an outward facing bud.
The three step cut for thick branches
Cut from below: Saw 20-30 cm outside the branch collar, from underneath and one third up into the branch.
Cut from above: Move 3-5 cm further out and saw the branch off from above. It falls, and the tear in the bark stops at the first cut.
Final cut: What is left is a stub you can hold on to while you saw. Take it just outside the branch collar.
If you go straight at a thick branch it lets go before the saw is through and rips a strip of bark far down the trunk. That wound ends up many times larger than the cut.
How much and what you take off
No more than a fifth of the living crown per year. The leaves are the tree's food factory, and if you take more the tree answers with panic growth: more water shoots, less fruit and a crown that is denser in two years than when you started. A fifth is less than you think. If an old tree has ten thick branches, two of them are the whole quota for the year. Dead, diseased and broken wood does not count towards it.
Dead, diseased and broken branches: First of all, every year. Afterwards you can see the frame of the tree.
Crossing branches: Two branches rubbing against each other wear a hole in the bark. Keep the one growing best.
Inward growing branches: Anything growing in towards the trunk shades the middle of the crown and gives fruit that never ripens.
Water shoots: Vertical shoots without side branches. Take about a third per year. Cut them all off and twice as many come back the next summer.
Competing leaders: An apple tree should have one continuous trunk. If two shoots compete for the top, take the weaker one at the base while it is still thin.
Narrow branch angles: A branch at less than 45 degrees to the trunk is weakly attached and splits off when it carries a full crop.
The aim is light and air. Light gives colour and sugar in the apples, and moving air dries the leaves so scab gets less of a hold. Apples also depend on insects to set fruit, so a sown strip of seeds for pollinators next to the tree does its bit.
Formative pruning in the first years
Young trees are built up in February or March, precisely because the growth driving effect is what you want here.
Year 1: Leave the tree alone. The roots need to establish. Take off damaged branches only.
Year 2: Pick out 3-5 main branches spread evenly around the trunk and at different heights. Let the lowest one sit at least 70 cm above the ground. Take the rest away.
Years 3 to 5: Keep the leading shoot on its own and shorten whatever competes with it. Keep the chosen main branches and keep the crown open enough to throw a hat straight through it.
Renovating an old tree over three years
Year 1, July to September: Take out dead, diseased and broken wood. Touch nothing healthy. Now you can see which branches carry the tree.
Year 2, July to September: Open the middle. Crossing and inward growing branches come out, up to a fifth of the living wood.
Year 3, July to September: Bring the height down. Shorten the tallest branches back to an outward facing side branch that is at least a third as thick as the part you remove. The side branch then takes over the sap flow.
Cut the branch off halfway along, with no side branch to lead into, and the stub dies back while the tree answers with a tuft of water shoots out of the cut. A thinned tree lets light down onto the ground beneath it, and perennials do better there than grass.
Four mistakes that cost the tree
Pruning in autumn: October and November are damp, healing has stalled and spores of apple canker find their way into every fresh cut.
Painting the cut surfaces: Pruning wax and wound paint seal moisture against the wood and do not stop rot. A clean cut outside the branch collar heals best in open air.
Topping: Sawing the crown off at a set height gives dozens of weakly attached shoots out of every stub, and the stubs rot from the inside.
Catching up all at once: Ten years of missed pruning cannot be put right in a day. The one fifth rule holds even when the tree looks hopeless.
Author: Emma Vogiatzi
Fact-checked by Erik Hoekstra
Last updated 2026-09-01