When to establish the shape of a fruit shrub?

General Fruit Growing
#1

I can’t find much information on how to prune an aronia. I would like to achieve a nice “shell” shape (upside-down triangle, semi-rounded on the top - see image below).

When is the best time (in terms of year-span) to prune a shrub to that shape? Should I:

  1. Immediately prune it to that shape while the shrub is still young (about a year old)?
  2. Wait until the central stem reaches my desired maximum height and then prune everything to that shape?
  3. Or should I cut everything back close to the ground to stimulate more outer growth?

This is the kind of result I would like to achieve:

#2

In my experience aronia is multi stemmed and slightly suckering. I don’t think you really need to douch pruning except to remove old branches/stems to rejuvenate.

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