When to prune Amelanchier Lamarckii

Good evening,

I have got a couple of Amelanchier Lamarckii multi stem trees in my garden. They have been growing well for the past year and I'd like to shape them into a nice multistem shape with a lifted canopy at some point. I've included some pics of them.

When is the best time to do this? Should I wait till they a more mature?

Many thanks,
Ed

 

Hi Ed,

I am also looking to prune a multistem Amelanchier (Canadensis in my case). I believe it's considered to be best to do in late Winter, right before Spring kicks in, though I might try it before that personally.

As for your question about maturity - I am not an expert on it, I have never pruned mine before, but my gut feel would be to take out some of the lower branches but not do anything too drastic at this stage.

FYI this is how my Amelanchier looks:


And this is an AI generated render after pruning the sides and adding foliage.


I plan to lift the canopy further later on, but I don't want to be too drastic right now and make it have too little foliage.

 

Personally I would leave them unless there are obvious problem branches. The lower branches will help thicken the trunk and make it a more sturdy tree. Removing to much low growth, to quickly, can create a weaker, lankier plant. The extra leaves also help with fueling root development, which is important in establishing new plants.

 

If I was growing a single stemmed tree I'd wait three to five years before attempting to raise the canopy, depending on the tree, for the reasons described by @Thevictorian. Amelanchiers are more shrub like and your multi stemmed plant should be fine if you just remove the branches nearest to the ground initially. There looks like two or three in your photo that you could possibly remove. The soil level looks a little high around the base of your plant, it might be worth reducing it slightly to where it may have been in its original pot, to avoid any problems with rotting.

 

Wow! Your tree is a little bit more mature than mine - looking good!