It takes years to learn how to prune a peach tree. I'm still learning. Perhaps that's the reason each year has failures, but more importantly, lessons. In the end, I believe pruning is more of an art than simply technique.
I begin with a belief that most trees want to be pruned. Pruned hard. Cut out the deadwood. Remove the overgrowth.
When I start, I'll stand before a tree and the first cuts are timid, just a few cosmetic snips. Initially, a major cut is perceived as harmful, somehow a defeat and loss. To cut back implies something has failed, as if growth is always supposed to move in an expansive direction with more and more accumulation equating to good.
But not all growth is beneficial. As I warm up to my work, I'll become bolder with my pruning. I try to envision the overall development of a tree and trust the simple belief that an annual pruning sojourn is healthy for the tree and myself. We pay attention to each other.
Of course, a major problem is not with this year's pruning but rather the fact that good pruning may have been put off for years. Despite watching a tree sag with the dense growth or the lower extremities die from a lack of sunlight, I had convinced myself the problem would go away and somehow fix itself. Isn't that how nature works?
But incremental growth necessarily includes midcourse corrections, acknowledgment of missteps and cutting my losses. In the long run, annual snips and cuts are better than once-in-a-decade downsizing. Besides, pruning works best with shears not chain saws. Sawing relies on having great judgment with a single swoop; a pair of shears offers the potential of hundreds of smaller decisions and with a greater margin for error. I don't sweat as much with a pruning shear in hand.
Second, I prune for quality. Most farmers prune hard to stimulate growth, fatten branches and produce bigger fruit. Yet I have concluded we don't need bulbous peaches, just nice-sized ones, suitable for the human hand. So, I try to prune and leave lots of healthy wood, enough for a good crop, but not too much for the tree to bear. No tree is alike, so it demands constant annual attention. I try to respect the individuality of each tree.
Third, I prune for light. I want sunlight to penetrate deeply into the tree. Without good pruning, parts of a tree would lie hidden, lost in shade, rarely seeing daylight; places that are forgotten, neglected and often slip in productivity. I want to shed light on problems.
Remember, with tree fruit you're not growing shade trees. That type of pruning would be entirely different, the goal would be to block the sun and hide in the shadows. Instead, I want to prune with productivity in mind with a quest for quality.
The secret is to look for negative space — to train myself to search for the light between the branches. This becomes a challenge, after all, shouldn't the focus be the branches? But by stepping back, I can picture the whole, see an individual limb in context of the larger tree, envision it as sunlight does.
Fourth, if I'm working well, I can see the future. As I snip, cut and shape in the winter, I envision the tree basking in the summer sun. I want to see branches flush with leaves, the warm light stroking peaches as they grow from small coin-sized fruits into fat, juicy gems. In winter, I prune with the eyes of summer, hoping to master the art of projection and anticipation: imagining where and how a limb will continue to grow, where the blossoms, then fruits will set, and how they will thrive in the spring and summer light. When I prune well, I can see the possible.
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