Pruning The Orchard

 We finally had some decent weather this weekend so I started both days out in the Garden. Yesterday I had planted my two Anna apple trees in pots since they were the two bare root trees I bought on Thursday. Lucky for me Sean has a stock pile of good garden soil and extra large planting pots. Not sure why he has a stock pile of the pots and soil as he didn't have a garden of any kind until he met me, but I'm thankful he did. So today, since the weather was really nice and the temperature tonight was going to be in the 50's, I decided to prune all the trees and my rose bushes; or as I like to say they all got their "winter hair cuts." Basically, when I trim my trees and roses, I take off as little as possible. Anything that is dry or dead gets clipped off. When I do my fruit trees I always clip off the old fruit stems. Pruning your plants, trees, and bushes helps promote healthy and faster growth , it also helps them to bush or branch out so that they become fuller. When a plant or tree has a dead branch, for example, the plant or tree still uses some of it's energy on trying to get that limb or branch to grow. The energy that the plant is using to do this with can be put to better use somewhere else, like producing flowers, fruit, new growth, or leaves.