Sunday, February 20, 2011

On My To Do List Today

Things You'll Need:
Heavy-duty gloves
Hand-pruning shears
Long-handled loppers
Rubbing alcohol
Pruning saw (optional)
Ladder (optional)
Whitewash solution (optional)


You may ask why do I need these things today...well I'm going to be pruning an orange tree. I have pruned the odd fruit tree over the years, especially when I was growing up in the pacific northwest. I've pruned peach and apple trees and plum trees in Ontario. But I haven't pruned a fruit tree. I am going to prune an orange tree today. I've watched a couple of youtube videos and some info pages with instructions. In general it seems pruning an orange tree is similar to pruning other fruit trees. One interesting difference is protecting the trimmed cuts from direct sunlight to avoid sunburn. By leaving a number of top branches to provide shade this can be accomplished. If needed one should paint the exposed fresh cuts (if you can't use existing branches for shade) with whitewash. Pretty cool stuff. Okay I'm off to it...pruning season is between january and march before blossoms manifest.

3 comments:

tweetey30 said...

sounds like fun.. enjoy yourself.

Anonymous said...

Where did you find an orange tree?

-andy

Gardenia said...

I love knowing my oranges will be so much more robust come next pickin' seasons! :)

generated by sloganizer.net