Fruit tree pruning in winter: a service page for gardens

The Lower Saxony Chamber of Agriculture is clear about timing: fruit trees should be pruned during the dormant period, in other words while they are leafless (LWK Niedersachsen). Asked whether a tree pruned in spring will still bear fruit in the fall, the adviser Mechthild de Boer names February as a good time to prune, while it is still cold and the tree is still at rest (LWK Niedersachsen). Flower formation and fruit set only follow later in spring when the tree breaks bud. For the customer this is the most important message on the page: pruning in February does not get in the way of the harvest in the fall. That one worry can be cleared up on the page in a single sentence.

The pruning window closes when the buds break, and that does not happen at the same time every year. The German Environment Agency describes how, above all, rising temperatures lead to earlier bud break, flowering and fruit formation compared with earlier decades (Umweltbundesamt). For the business this means March is not a safe buffer. Anyone who only starts taking enquiries in March may end up cutting into the new growth in a mild year. The Chamber itself names one exception: carefully shortening long new shoots is also possible while the tree is in leaf (LWK Niedersachsen). That is a small summer job, though, and not the maintenance pruning this page is about.

For the business, pruning season falls in the months when little else is going on. German social law explicitly calls the period from December 1 to March 31 the bad-weather season and ties seasonal short-time work benefits to it (§ 101 SGB III). The construction business regulation counts landscaping firms that, for example, build gardens, parks and green spaces among the businesses whose year-round employment is supported this way (§ 1 Abs. 4 BaubetrV). Fruit tree pruning is a garden service that belongs in exactly these months on horticultural grounds. Every pruning day in February is a day when the crew works instead of waiting for better weather on a building site.

For this to work, the page has to be online before the saw comes out. Many garden owners only see how tangled their tree's crown has become once the leaves have fallen. Showing the service page at that point lets the business assign the January to March dates early. How to use the quiet weeks as a whole is covered in the article on winter topics for your website; how to spread enquiries over the year instead of drowning in them each spring is explained under steering seasonal enquiries.

Customers usually know only one term: fruit tree pruning. The Chamber of Agriculture distinguishes three stages in a tree's life. Pruning at planting gives the tree its start toward a good crown structure, formative pruning follows, and once the good crown structure has been reached after a few years, the work is called maintenance pruning (LWK Niedersachsen). This breakdown belongs on the page because it explains to the customer why their young tree needs a different cut from the old tree next door, and because it tells the business how much work lies ahead.

Then there is the age of the tree, which the Chamber also puts into context. Most fruit trees are planted at the age of three years. An apple tree grown as a bush or quarter standard can bear its first fruit the very next year, and a good harvest can then be expected for about 15 years. A standard tree only gives an abundant harvest after about 15 years, but in return it can bear good fruit for 50 years or more (LWK Niedersachsen). This leads to a simple question for the customer on the service page: bush, half standard or standard? The answer says a lot about height and pruning effort and about how long the tree may keep the business busy.

Honesty belongs on the page as well. Not every tree needs the shears every year. Plums and sweet cherries often need no pruning at all, and apple varieties such as Boskoop and Freiherr von Berlepsch, which do not bear so heavily, should preferably only be thinned (LWK Niedersachsen). A firm that writes this on its own page does not come across as someone trying to sell work on every tree, and it saves itself site visits to cherry trees where there is hardly anything to do. The time goes into the trees where pruning actually makes a difference.

A year strip with twelve month fields explains the season faster than any paragraph. January to March are shaded in color with February highlighted, June and July carry the summer visit for water shoots, and November and December carry the note that enquiries for the winter are now being taken. Pruning is possible throughout the dormant period; for the business, though, the pruning dates sensibly fall in the weeks after the turn of the year, when other work is at rest. Along the way the strip answers the question that otherwise comes up on the phone: why can the tree not be pruned in May?

What the strip does not explain is the legal situation. Why the fruit tree in a home garden is treated differently from the hedge next to it, and which cuts remain permitted in summer, is covered in the article on tree protection and felling seasons. On the service page one sentence with this link is enough, rather than laying out the provisions a second time. Firms working in a municipality with a tree protection bylaw add a short note that the bylaw is checked before very large cutbacks.

On the phone the business clarifies the same points for every pruning enquiry: how many trees, how tall, which kind of fruit, when they were last pruned, how to get into the garden and what happens to the prunings. A form asks exactly these questions before anyone drives out to a site visit. How form fields pre-qualify in general is described in the article on an enquiry form that qualifies. For fruit tree pruning these are the fields:

Height is the most important field because it decides the equipment. A portable ladder may only be used as an elevated workplace if the worker stands with both feet on a step or platform and the standing position is no higher than 5 m above the surface it stands on (TRBS 2121 Teil 2). Even between 2 m and 5 m standing height, a ladder is only permitted as an elevated workplace for temporary work, and only if other, safer equipment is not proportionate because the risk is low and the job is short (TRBS 2121 Teil 2). Temporary means no more than two hours per shift (TRBS 2121 Teil 2). Tree height is not standing height, but it shows early on whether a ladder is an option at all and whether a pruning day with several trees needs other equipment. For tall trees the Chamber names shears and saws with telescopic handles (LWK Niedersachsen); if that is not enough either, an aerial work platform or another way of working is needed, which means a different quote. Customers usually only estimate the height. That is why the option not sure sits next to the figures, and the photo fills in what the estimate leaves open.

The photo often saves the first trip. Currently 86 percent of people over 16 in Germany use a smartphone, but among people over 65 it is only 53 percent (Bitkom). So the older customers with the big standard tree in the garden do not necessarily carry a camera in their pocket. An upload directly from the phone that accepts several images therefore belongs on the page, but the field stays optional. Next to it are a phone number and a callback request, so that nobody gives up because a photo is missing.

Access decides time and equipment. An aerial work platform will not fit into a back garden behind a row house that can only be reached through the basement or across the neighbor's property, and the prunings have to be carried out to the front armful by armful. A question about the width of the narrowest passage settles this before the quote is written. How the enquiries then reach the business is shown on the page about the enquiry form for landscapers: as a clear email with all fields in a fixed order and the photos as an attachment or link.

A fruit tree is rarely a one-off job. Apple trees in particular should be thinned every year, the same goes for pears, and young trees in particular should be checked every year to keep their leaders in balance (LWK Niedersachsen). A standard tree planted at three years old that bears for 50 years or more accompanies a garden for decades. The service page therefore offers a cycle alongside the single pruning: a winter visit every year, a summer visit when needed, and a reminder in the fall.

For the business, the winter service becomes plannable work this way. Knowing in October which trees will be pruned in February means crews, the aerial work platform and removal can be scheduled early and routes can be grouped by postal code. How recurring jobs like these appear as a contract on the website is shown in the article on offering garden maintenance contracts.

Fruit tree pruning is not the only winter service that deserves its own page. Firms that also clear snow and grit need a winter service page that follows the bylaws, and for businesses with commercial clients, interior plantscaping for offices can be another service for the cold months. What all three have in common is that the page has to be up before the season, not during it.