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.

Following 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.

Instructor Shilpa Thanawala is a San Carlos-based UC Master Gardener and experienced garden educator. She runs a leadership coaching practice and also serves as a grants manager for Planet Bee Foundation. Her small home garden contains more than 30 varieties of fruit trees, canes, and shrubs, a large herb garden, and a growing number of California native and pollinator plants. She has previously taught pruning to GFE’s Get Up! groups as well as to the public, and has co-taught GFE fruit tree pruning workshops.