Summer pruning of espaliered fruit

The Lorette method, gently adapted for British weather and the kind of orchards we actually have.

If you have an espaliered apple or pear — or are thinking about training one — the most important thing you can do for it happens not in winter, but in the middle of summer. Summer pruning is what keeps an espalier productive and compact. Miss it, and by autumn you will have a tree that is trying to be a hedge.

The classical approach is the Lorette system, developed in early 20th-century France: cut all new lateral shoots back to three leaves above the basal cluster, do it in one go around late July, and repeat for any secondary growth in September. It works brilliantly in the warm, dry summers of the Loire Valley.

In the Midlands, we adapt it. Our summers are wetter and cooler, so we often split the pruning into two lighter passes rather than one hard cut. We also wait until we can see the fruit buds forming at the base of the current season’s growth before we cut — which sometimes means early August rather than late July.

The result is the same: a compact, fruitful espalier that channels its energy into fruit production rather than vegetative growth. It is one of the most satisfying jobs in the calendar — immediate, visible, and directly useful.