Pruning and winter washing fruit tree

Autumn is the key to creating some great fruit for the next season.
Once you have harvested the current crop of fruit apples, pears etc it’s time to start preparing your fruit trees for next year.
When the leaves have fallen start by pruning your fruit tree. First remove all the broken, dead and diseased branches and twigs. If you are not sure if the branch or twigs are dead try lightly scratching the bark or skin with your thumbnail or a small knife and if it’s green just under the surface then it’s alive.
Next cut back the summer shoots back to 3 or 4 buds these are the long shoots produced on the tree in the summer.
You can also shape the tree at this stage but that’s best carried out with your GardenAdvice advisor with a quick visit.
The most important autumn task in autumn fruit tree care is to spray with a winter wash which will kill all the overwintering pest eggs, etc hiding in all the cracks and gaps in the bark on the twigs stems and branches plus add some grease bands on the main stems Click Here for more information