I’m having a hard time finding any guides for pruning miniature nectarines. Anyone growing them have advice? The two I just got seemed to have a central leader and are very crowded though I had to prune four or five branches off of each of them because of breakage shipping. I know they grow really slow and it seems like people tend to keep them crowded, but is that good? should I be thinning out the central growth and trying to establish scaffolds?
How big do they get? How big do you want them to be? I’ve see standard trees pruned smaller than dwarfs.
One arctic babe and one nectazee. Supposedly they grow to around 5x5. I’ve seen pictures much bigger. I plant on keeping them under 5. They’re just pretty crowded and I don’t know if that’s OK for these.
take a photo from above so we can see the spacing. I like my peaches as open center. not how that would work as a mini tree
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My advice is to do nothing for the moment. I’ve had a number of miniature peaches and nectarines in pots for about 4-5 years now. While I enjoy them a lot, the one negative I have about them is their limited growth in pots. I don’t ever see them approaching a 5x5 height, in pots, at my location.
Maybe it’s me and my [poor] care of them, but I would wait a year and see how much growth they put out before deciding shape. Personally, I want every branch I can get.
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I have a 6th or 7th leaf Arctic Babe and a second leaf Necta Zee and Sol Dorado. All potted. The Arctic babe is slower growing and has smaller leaves so keep that in mind
My thoughts: Pink tag only prune off the branch touching the ground and the stub next to it
Blue tag try to pull straighter and prune off anything growing inward. If that one is necta zee- also make it open center by taking out the middle leader/branch.
Be prepared to thin heavily- otherwise you’ll break branches and fruit will be poor quality. Arctic babe needs to be taste tested when it barely yields to pressure.
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Thank you for the suggestions. The blue tag is the arctic babe and its graft union is barely 1.5” from the roots. I kept that straight and that’s how crooked the tree is.
Left tree/pink tag is the nectazee and has the prominent central leader/growth.
Background on these trees I posted elsewhere: they came from Raintree yesterday with moldy roots, so many broken limbs and the arctic babe is 16-18” depending on how far you push the measuring tape into the roots when they are sold as 2-3’…. I pruned off all the worst moldy roots, the snapped/hanging limbs and tried my best with the crazy low graft. (And emailed lots of pictures, awaiting response)
I recommend waiting for couple years before you prune. Also you may want to move them into a hard sided pot, grow bags work to root prune but also need daily watering during the peak of summer.
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