Garden for the Environment: Summer Fruit Tree Pruning

Fruit trees require year-round care, and summer pruning is critical to their health. Summer pruning allows air and light to reach fruits and lower branches, controls growth on vigorous trees, helps direct a tree’s shape, and is an opportunity to remove dead, damaged, and dying wood. Our expert instructors will teach general pruning techniques, discuss the differences between summer and winter pruning, and lead a hands-on demonstration so you can learn which cuts will keep your trees healthy and productive.

F ollowing the workshop, you can put your newfound skills to use! Feel free to bring a lunch and eat with GFE staff and volunteers, and then at 1pm, join a group of fellow workshop participants and others from the GFE community to prune our orchard trees.

Your expert instructors Jamie Chan and Blas Herrera are natives of San Francisco. They tend a small homestead in San Francisco with their two daughters, complete with honey bees, chickens, a greenhouse, a mini-orchard, and vegetables. Blas has a degree in environmental studies, a certificate in sustainable design from the Urban Permaculture Institute of San Francisco and currently is a local high school instructor. Jamie has an MS in science and a doctorate in education from SF State University. She is a certified UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardener and is currently director of programs at the Gardens of Golden Gate Park (which includes the SF Botanical Garden, Conservatory of Flowers, and Japanese Tea Garden). In their free time, you can find them volunteering at their local community greenspace Sisterhood Gardens and running their garden education company @FogCityGardener.