Citrus are my favourite trees to prune. Especially thick, thorny, over grown ones – they restore so quickly and beautifully when you use mainly thinning cuts. What a difference when you give up heading cuts and get thinning! Because citrus fruit on new seasons wood, this style of pruning keeps trees compact, sturdy and insanely fruitful.
- An annually pruned citrus only needs a tiny wee prune – I hope to inspire you.
- Overgrown citrus can take a hard prune. I’ve freaked quite a few customers out over the years with dramatic citrus tree reductions, but they shoot away the following summer, gearing up to fruit the year after that. With a compact, lovely tree and reachable fruit – alI is forgiven.
Timing it right
Timing is everything with citrus. If you live somewhere warm and mild, then prune late winter – right after harvest. If it’s frosty at yours, delay pruning until risk of frost is over – mid to late spring is fine. Beware of summer pruning though, as this is when citrus borer is out and about.
Meyer lemons bear fruit nearly year round. Pruning a tree covered in fruit can be mentally hard. Just get it done and once you settle into a rhythm of an annual prune, you’ll only be taking a small amount off each time reducing the concern regards removing fruits.
Begin
Choose a lovely, dry day and begin your prune by removing any dead and damaged wood. Cut back to healthy clean wood.
Remove all growth that starts from the rootstock which is a different variety to the fruiting top – that’s why it looks so different, and may well be thorny to boot. If you’ve never pruned these off they may have grown large, shooting up through your tree. Remove them and pull them out – wow! your tree never looked so good.
Drag out the removed wood and begin a stack. Put all successive prunings on this pile so as you can keep it real about how much you’ve removed.
Airflow + Light
Though trimming around the outside (heading cuts) of the tree feels safer, it removes most of the fruiting sites and creates a very twiggy dense canopy.
Whereas thinning cuts, create airflow and light, inspire new shoots for future fruits, and leave much of the fruitful wood intact for the forth coming season. A good prognosis for a compact, yet productive tree.
- Remove dominant, upright shoots that clutter the tree, completely.
- In damp, low light or humid gardens, prune off all lower branches in the 1 metre (ish) space above the soil line to help prevent pests/ fungus.
- Then, get right inside the canopy, removing the occasional whole branch to de-tangle and open. Where you can, remove the longest branches, the ones that are causing imbalance by being too tall or too wide. Love me a 2 for 1 deal!
- Stand back and walk around the tree checking for balance. You may need one or two heading cuts to equalise the shape. Take it easy on those heading cuts to avoid loosing too many fruits.
Restoration
Citrus restore beautifully, so if you’ve got an old, dire tree – take heart. Go gently and slowly and follow along the process I’ve just described, doing a little each year.
Fantastic and easy to understand. Thanks, as always, for your clear explanation for those who are less experienced. I’m always a bit gentle on my citrus but not after reading this 🙂
Hi Kath
Our beautiful navel orange has borer. There must be some other tree badly infected in the neighbourhood, as it’s not the first time one of our trees has succumbed.. Is there a natural way of killing the borer in the tree. It’s presently fruiting and new buds are emerging?
Much thanks
Suzanne
Hey Suzanne – citrus tree borer is actually a native beetle! So impossible to avoid really given that it feeds on a wide variety of trees. Trees can live alongside it nicely, so dont worry too much. There’s a few things you can do to keep it in check.
Keeping citrus growing strongly is your first port of call – though not with artificial, pest enticing products. Go for homemade compost and a generous woody mulch.
Good pruning helps alot when done now, the moth is on the wing looking for egg sites mid spring on so no more pruning after that! Aim to keep the tree robust and stocky so as to mitigate any holes in the wood.
Send a fine wire up the holes and stab the larvae (satisfying!) or inject kerosene in the hole then immediately plug it with blutak.
Neem granules, from naturally neem are well worth a shot if populations go large. Work into the soil at the base of the plant on a regular basis.
I grow citrus (7 oranges, 2 lemons, 4 limes and 2 guava) in a geothermal greenhouse in Virginia. I have massive growth issues here late summer. Trees are 3 years old and tons of new growth, making the young limbs sag. I want to prune now, but read Fall prunings are bad. Isn’t letting the tree grow in the wrong directions bad too? The greenhouse never gets below 40F, so freezing isn’t a concern. What should I do? Thanks!
Hi John, Great to have such happy citrus!, unless the vigor is as a result of you pruning the trees back really hard winter/ early spring? Worth considering because this one change may solve the headaches. Otherwise an autumn prune may well work for you as there is a less vigorous response from the tree at this time, however you will just have to watch how the new growth fares in the colder temperatures.