Pruning A Crabapple Tree (Video)

How and When to Prune Crabapple Trees

The ideal time to prune your young crabapple trees is early Spring, before the leaves emerge, when there are no frosts, and after winter storms have done their worst.

Pruning at this time will consistently give the best results in terms of regrowth and flowering, but do not worry if you have to prune at some other time of year: crab apples are extremely tough, and nothing bad will happen if you prune during the growing season (apart from missing out on some glorious flowers or decorative fruit!).

As with any tree, remove DDD wood at any time: Dead, Damaged (which includes crossing/rubbing), or Diseased.

You will need a ladder, secateurs and pruning saw, or bypass loppers.

Formative Pruning of a Young Crabapple 

Gary Heilig's microphone needs wind protection, so turning on captions may help.
We've reviewed all the crab apple pruning videos on YouTube for you, and despite the annoying wind noise, Gary's presentation is the most detailed we've seen, discussing all the important principles with plenty of demonstration.

Restorative Pruning of a Mature, Overgrown Crabapple

We've skipped the first 30 seconds of intro blurb for you.
This video is still aimed at beginners, but tackles a mature tree that is slightly overgrown: the same principles apply to a very overgrown tree, with the proviso that it's best not to remove more than 25-30% of the tree per year.