Okay, so my loquat tree was getting seriously out of hand this year. Looked like a giant green monster taking over the corner of the yard. Plus, reaching the fruit up top? Forget about it. Needed a ladder and guts. Decided it was time to give it a good trim.
Getting Started
I waited until after it finished fruiting, sometime in late spring or early summer, don’t remember exactly which weekend. Seemed like the right time, didn’t want to mess up the fruit production for the year.
Didn’t need anything fancy for tools. Just grabbed my trusty stuff:
- Loppers: For the thicker branches, you know, the ones too big for hand clippers.
- Hand pruners: For the smaller stuff, finer work.
- A small saw: Had a couple of really thick dead branches near the bottom that needed sawing off.
- Gloves: Always wear gloves. Learned that the hard way years ago.
And that was pretty much it. Didn’t bother with ladders this time, the whole point was to bring the height down so I wouldn’t need one next year.
The Actual Pruning Work
First thing I did was circle the tree. Got a good look at the overall shape. It was dense. Way too dense. Light couldn’t even get into the middle.
Started with the obvious stuff. Dead branches. Easy win. Snapped ’em off or sawed them if they were thick. Cleaned up the base quite a bit.
Then, I looked for branches that were rubbing against each other or crossing awkwardly. Picked the weaker or worse-positioned one and snipped it off. Trying to open up the center, give it some breathing room.
Next up was tackling the height. This was the main event. Just started cutting back the tallest branches. Didn’t go crazy low, just brought them down to a more manageable level. Maybe chopped off a good two or three feet from the top branches. Aimed to cut just above an outward-facing bud or branch, someone told me that helps it grow outwards instead of straight up again, makes sense I guess.
Also took out some of the water sprouts – those really fast-growing vertical shoots. They don’t usually fruit much anyway and just make the tree look messy.
It wasn’t super scientific. Mostly just eyeballing it. Stepped back frequently to look at the shape. Cut a bit here, cut a bit there. Tried to make it look balanced, you know? Not lopsided.
Took a couple of hours, maybe. Was pretty sweaty by the end. Generated a decent pile of branches to clean up.
Aftermath and Thoughts
Cleaned up all the cuttings, dragged them to the compost pile. The tree definitely looked… lighter. More open. You could actually see sunlight hitting the inner branches.
Looks a bit bare now, honestly. But I know it needed it. Hopefully, this means better airflow, less chance of disease, and easier fruit picking next season. That’s the plan, anyway.
We’ll see how it recovers and grows back over the next year. Pruning always feels a bit brutal when you’re doing it, but it’s usually for the best in the long run. Fingers crossed for lots of easy-to-reach loquats next time!
