Pruning citrus?

September 2016

I confess, I've got bugger all experience and not much of a clue when it comes to pruning citrus and reading and watching experts on the topic has left me to conclude not very many other people do either.

So I've managed to cobble  together several seemingly vital bits of information and form my own approach which may or may not work.

So far it hasn't but I'll keep tweaking it until I've got something that works for me.

Why do I want to prune my Mandy? Two main reasons,

1. The space where my mandy is growing is on the smallish side and it was beginning to dominate the space and
   
2.  I only want to be able to pick fruit I can reach so keeping it pruned down to below the height of my shed will be my  ideal height.

June 2017

The experts! 

There seems to be three streams of thought when it comes to pruning.

1st is from Gardening Australia's 'Mr Citrus' - Ian Tolley. You can read what he has to say here,  Gardening Australia's 'Mr Citrus' - Ian Tolley

2nd is along the lines of a late Autumn or early Winter prune and a late Spring early Summer trim. This is the method I'm trying now.

3rd is to prune in thirds as in only hard pruning one third per year as a means to keep the overall height under control. I started trying this but couldn't make it work for me.

Now I need to wait and see if I get any flowers and if they set fruit. There is a line of thinking that this kind of pruning leads to excessive and vigerous growth at the expense of fruit. Time will tell.

Anyone got any suggestions for me? I love to hear them.

Cheers

Stewart.