Midwinter in the Florida garden is quite quiet until the camellias get blooming and the azaleas wake up. This means it is a good time for the chores of pruning and spraying the fruit trees for the springtime ahead. Pruning is said to be the most important part of orchard management. This week, I pruned the peaches, plums, persimmons, pawpaws, and grapes. The citrus will wait until next weekend. The goal is to shape the trees, limit the number of buds for flowers or branches, and remove any dead branches. The pruned tree then is sprayed with conditioning oil. This is considered an organic process, as the oil is usually plant-based. It covers the leaves and stems; on a warm spring day it smothers a variety of plant insects, such as scale, mites, etc. and also helps to control powdery mildew and other bad actors. As I looked at my trees and bushes, there were numerous nasty things to worry about. There were scale on the plums and cammelias, mildew on the peaches and grapes. This work will set up a healthy crop of fruit later in the spring.
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