We’re having nice weather for some fruit-tree pruning, wouldn’t you say? I have pruned some grapes but not much else yet this winter. I’ll be getting started on apricots, peaches, plums, pluots, and cherries this weekend.
How to do this?
I’ve written a number of posts on various aspects of winter pruning of deciduous trees, and I’ve listed them all below:
Why prune fruit trees in winter in Southern California? (And why not?)
Don’t cut off the fruiting wood: Pruning lesson number one
My best advice on pruning deciduous fruit trees: keep them small
Where to cut a branch on a deciduous fruit tree
Rejuvenation pruning of stone fruit trees
Think about sunshine when pruning deciduous fruit trees
Pruning a door into your fruit tree
What to do with fruit tree prunings?
Don’t prune apricots, cherries, and grapes in winter in Southern California?
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Hi Greg Met u today @scgarden. I was the Hawaiian orchardist that has moved to oceanside. I’ve made a small donation and hope to find some resources about pruning my black fig and pomegranate. Thanks for your time and insights
Hi Joe,
It was nice to meet you at the community garden. Thank you very much for the donation of support!
The good thing is that figs and pomegranates are not complicated to prune (which is why I didn’t address them at the pruning workshop). For pomegranates, see my post, “Pomegranate flowers.”
As for figs, generally speaking, you can cut a fig almost to the ground in the winter and it will still grow back and make fruit the following summer/fall. I’ve seen figs do this. They make fruit on “new” wood. But I read that varieties differ in how much they fruit on new wood versus old wood (growth from the previous summer or older), and I’m not certain about the habit of the Black Mission variety specifically. If I were you, I would pay attention to where your individual fig tree makes its fruit this year and then prune accordingly next year in order to attempt to get both the quantity of fruit and tree size you want.