When to Prune an Italian Plum Tree

Hi, I'm Charles Boning, author and illustrator of "Florida's Best Fruit and Plants." We're here at Jene's Tropicals to talk briefly today about when to prune an Italian plum tree. Most pruning in plum trees takes place in the winter time when a tree is dormant. Italian plums and other plums are best pruned in the late winter before brud bud brake. At that point, these trees have very little time in which to he...they he...to heal before they resume growth in the spring. That means there's very little time for fungal disease to enter the tree, very little time for insect damage to accrue, and very little time to have frost damage to any of the newly formed cuts in the tree. Italian plum trees can also be pl...pruned to some degree in the summer, for instance if there's water shoots, if there's lateral branches that get out of control, or if there's damaged or crossing branches, they can all be taken out, but major pruning should be done in the late winter. That's the critical period, and that's when you should prune Italian plums. I'm Charles Boning and that's how to prune an Italian plum.