It's January. And the Poms are waking!

As usual, my Wonderful Poms are the first out of the gate. Right on schedule, as they usually wake up late Jan/Early Feb. With any luck we’ll have a bountiful haul come late Oct. :sunglasses:

6 Likes

Cut mine back pretty hard. I have a couple dwarfs I got last year from bakers creek.

1 Like

I actually cut this one back as well. It grew new branches last year like it was possessed. In fact it almost toppled after a rainfall with the extra weight, last year.

Are they outdoors, in ground or in pots inside? What zone are you in.

They are outdoors, in the ground. Here in Zone 9B.

@Calron, Nice pics. Only the potted ones here, in the garage, (even tho they are in low light), are waking. I’m in Zone 8A. And we are still getting some freezing temps.
I was out in the field, yesterday - pruning away suckers and any nasty looking growth. The plants are still young - only a few years old. Only about 4’ tall. I’m trying to limit the number of trunks, with each plant . . . but it seems to be a losing battle.

Pruning is always a dilemma for me! Seems the more you prune away . . . the more you get. But, I can’t allow the plants to get so thick that no light or air gets ‘in’. And - some of the varieties’ branching habit is so ‘twisty’ - that it is almost impossible to keep them from crossing one another, and inevitably rubbing.

Seems like every year I’m out there ‘scratching my head’ about ‘what to take and what to leave’! I’m even thinking I should just let them do ‘whatever they are going to do’ and maybe I’ll get fruit sooner . . . and see more production. ?

I didn’t take any pics yesterday - but I will later . . . and I’ll post them. Maybe you’ll have some tips.

What are your ‘basic rules’ for late winter pruning with poms?
And do you do any spraying?
Just curious.

1 Like

I run into the same dilemma regarding pruning. I’ve heavily cut this one back the last 2 years, or it would be a monster. My rule of thumb is I cut most if not all the crossed branches, as well as all suckers. I leave about 2/3 trunks. My climate is really textbook for poms. Very hot, dry, long summers. In fact our statistical average rainfall for the summer months is something crazy like 0.0" for rainfall. With that, we also have very low humidity, so really no need to spray for anything.

1 Like

The bigger they get the more you have to prune until they slow down growing oddly. Our pomegranate that we planted in 2011 still is growing fast, faster than when it was younger, yet I don’t find as much that I need to prune. Because it’s more of a height grower and growing thicker trunked at this point, less growing wildly.

I get really confused in Malta pomegranate seedlings are everywhere and they don’t look like they even need pruning, nor do they look like someone is pruning them.

I learned that you have no choice but to prune heavily and I think that if you prune when they are still dormant, that it does not effect the cropping negatively much. Then again it does seem like some varieties do react differently to heavy pruning than others. Also some varieties do alternate years of production and that can be mistaken for a reaction to pruning when it’s not.

1 Like