Why Winter Is the Right Moment

An apple tree pruned in winter is a tree at rest. Between leaf fall and bud burst the sap is low, the framework is bare and easy to read, and the tree is not spending energy on wood you are about to take away. In most of the UK that window runs from late November through to the end of February, with a pause during hard frost. Frozen wood splinters rather than cuts cleanly, and a bright, dry, mild day is far kinder to a fresh wound than a wet one.

There is a second reason to prune now rather than in summer. Winter pruning is invigorating. Cut a branch back hard in the dormant season and the tree responds with vigorous new growth the following spring, which is exactly what you want if you are building a young tree's framework or coaxing an old one back into shape. Summer pruning, by contrast, restrains growth, and is best kept for trained forms such as cordons and espaliers where you want to keep the tree compact.

The aim throughout is a tree with an open centre — a goblet or wine-glass shape — where light and air reach the middle. Fruit that ripens in good light colours better, stores longer and suffers less from scab and canker.

Tools and the Rules of a Clean Cut

Good pruning is mostly about sharp tools and small cuts. A blunt blade crushes the cambium and leaves a ragged wound that diseases can walk straight into.

• Bypass secateurs for anything up to about a centimetre in diameter.
• Loppers for the two to four centimetre range, where branches start to resist.
• A pruning saw for anything thicker — never force secateurs through a limb that is too big for them.
• A clean cloth and a little methylated spirit to wipe blades between trees, especially if you have been working on one with canker.

Always cut back to a bud, a sideshoot or, better still, a branch collar — the slight swelling where a branch joins its parent. Cutting flush to the trunk removes the collar and leaves a large wound that heals slowly; leaving a long stub means dieback, which invites infection. For limbs heavier than your wrist, use the three-cut method: an undercut a hand's width out from the trunk, a top cut slightly further along to bring the branch down, then a final tidy cut back to the collar. That way the falling limb cannot tear a strip of bark off the trunk.

Do not paint wounds. Modern advice is consistent: apples seal their own cuts, and wound paint traps moisture and can do more harm than good.

Begin with the Three Ds

Before you think about shape at all, walk round the tree and take out anything dead, diseased or damaged. This is the least controversial pruning you will do, and it usually transforms the picture. Dead wood is dull, brittle and hollow-sounding; diseased wood shows sunken, cracked patches of canker or the tell-tale staining of silver leaf. Cut back into clean, healthy timber, and if you meet a dark stain in the centre of the branch, clean your tools before moving on.

Next deal with crossing and rubbing branches, which chafe away bark and open a door to infection. Remove the weaker or more inward-growing of the pair. Thin out any branch heading straight for the centre of the tree, and take out water shoots — the vertical, fast-growing whips that erupt from the top of an old limb — unless you need one to fill a gap.

Keep working round the tree, stepping back every few cuts. It is much easier to see the shape from five paces away than from under the canopy.

Shortening Leaders to Encourage Fruiting Spurs

With the clutter cleared, you can start shaping. On spur-bearing apples — the majority of garden varieties, including Cox's Orange Pippin and Discovery — the fruit forms on short, stubby spurs carried on wood two years old and older. The trick is to encourage plenty of sturdy, well-spaced branches that will carry those spurs.

Take the previous season's growth — the one-year-old shoots, recognisable by their lighter colour and the ring of bud-scale scars at the base — and shorten each by a third to a half, cutting to an outward-facing bud about five millimetres above it. Choose a bud pointing in the direction you want the branch to travel. This does two things: it stiffens the branch so it can carry a crop without sagging, and it concentrates the sap into the buds below the cut, which is what turns those buds into spurs.

Aim for a spacing of roughly 10 to 15 centimetres between the main branches, arranged so that no branch sits directly above another. Branches growing at a wide angle from the trunk — ideally around 45 to 60 degrees from vertical — crop far more reliably than those shooting straight upwards.

One important exception: tip-bearing or partial tip-bearers, such as Bramley's Seedling, carry much of their fruit at the ends of last year's shoots. Shorten these only lightly, or you will be cutting off next autumn's crop. If you are unsure which type you have, prune lightly for a season and watch where the blossom appears.

Renovating a Neglected Tree

An overgrown old apple is a long project, not a single afternoon's work. Remove more than a quarter of the canopy in one go and the tree will answer with a forest of leafy water shoots and very little fruit.

Spread the job over two or three winters. In the first year, take out the three Ds and any obvious congestion low down. In the second, thin the remaining overcrowded branches and begin lowering the height by cutting a few of the tallest limbs back to a strong outward side branch. By the third winter you should have something approaching an open-centred goblet. Sawdust-sized cuts are best left until the tree has had a summer to recover.

Feeding, Mulching and a Little Patience

Pruning is only half the job. In late winter, mulch around the tree with well-rotted manure or garden compost, keeping it clear of the trunk, and give a balanced feed if the tree has not been fed for years. Go easy on nitrogen — too much pushes leafy growth at the expense of fruit, and soft growth is a magnet for aphids.

Finally, keep a rough record. Note the variety, the date you pruned, and what you cut. A garden apple tree, pruned thoughtfully for a few winters running, becomes steadily easier to read — and the fruit, ripening in an open, well-lit canopy, will tell you whether you got it right.