BQLT's Fall Tree Pruning

🍁BQLT Fall Tree Workshops on Pruning & Fruit Tree Care

This fall we hosted two tree pruning workshops with Trees New York @treesny, paid for by a grant from the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. We had a beautiful fall afternoon on Saturday October 8th for pruning three fruit trees–an apple, a pear and a peach–at Heaven’s Gate Garden in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Our small but mighty team of BQLT gardeners were led by arborist/trainer, Sam Bishop, in pruning fruit trees, learning tool sharpening techniques, and general fruit tree care. Several members are now Licensed Citizen Pruners and others are still Citizen Pruners-in-training.

We had another great workshop on Saturday November 19th at Merrick-Marsden Neighbors Assn. Garden in Jamaica, Queens. Merrick-Marsden gardeners, board members, and Citizen Pruners were again supervised by arborist Sam Bishop. Using all the tools of the trade, we pruned two pear trees, one peach, one fig, as well as removed white maple volunteers growing along the garden’s fence line and tackled a vine attacking a mature apple tree!

Thanks to NYS Department of Environmental Conservation @nysdec for generously funding these tree workshops, as part of BQLT’s Urban & Community Forestry Grant. During 2022, this funding allowed us to do necessary tree pruning in 14 gardens, to offer a special Citizen Pruner course with 20 BQLT gardeners (from 14 different BQLT gardens), and to host our first Arbor Day Celebration on May 14th in Brooklyn.