An orchard full of apples and cherries in summer is often the dream setting for the garden. However, next year’s harvest is happening now, in the heart of winter, while the branches seem to be asleep. Between the cracks in the bark and the forgotten fruits, the enemies of your trees are already getting organized.
Aphid eggs, mealybugs, mites, scab or peach leaf blister spores hide in every nook and cranny. If nothing is done before the sap resumes, these pests explode in the spring and can ruin half the harvest. The window for action is closing very quickly.
Winter treatment of fruit trees: why February is the limit
The winter treatment of fruit trees is practiced between leaf fall and bud burst, when the buds begin to swell. The end of winter, around February, is decisive: beyond that, the young leaves become sensitive and oily treatments can burn or suffocate them.
Gardener Peter Mortin sums up the issue by speaking of “tree washing”. According to him, “You should consider spraying your fruit trees with an organic winter tree wash. This should be done before any leaves or flower buds appear, so February is the last chance to do this,” Peter Mortin, gardening expert at Crane Garden Buildings, told Express. He adds: “This will help kill insects, their eggs and fungus spores, as well as other ‘pests’ like peach leaf curl spores. Essentially, this tree wash ensures that you produce a nice harvest in the summer.”
How to treat your apple, pear and peach trees before resuming
Before any spraying, the good reflex is to clean: collect dead leaves and mummified fruits, gently brush the bark to remove moss and lichens, protect wounds with a putty. This household already limits apple scab, peach leaf curl, moniliosis and other cryptogamic diseases which overwinter on site.
Then comes the treatment: at the end of winter, we often use a white oil or rapeseed oil diluted in water, sometimes with black soap. The mixture is poured into a sprayer, shaken well, then applied in dry, windless, frost-free weather, around 5 to 15°C. The tree is “washed” from head to toe, trunk, frames, young branches and crevices included. There Bordeaux mixture and the arboreal white complete this work on bark fungi.
Are mainly concerned in a French garden:
- Apple and pear trees
- Plum and cherry trees
- Peach and apricot trees
- Vines, blackcurrants, gooseberries, blackberries
What if the winter treatment of your fruit trees is already late?
If the buds already show green or petals, it is better to stop oil-based treatments: the risk of burns increases significantly. In this case, the priority becomes monitoring: cut the affected branches at the first symptoms, systematically collect diseased leaves and rotten fruit, ventilate the branches by light pruning to limit humidity.
Curled leaves of peach trees, scabbed apples or rotten plums often remind us of a winter without care. Even if this year’s window has passed, preparing this winter washing protocol next fall will permanently change the face of your orchard.
