Over the summer months, the BC Council for Garden Clubs presented '“Gabbing About Gardening” Zoom Gatherings. The Garden Teacher for August is Gordon MacKay, Professional Arborist & Pruning Expert.
In this presentation, we learned all about:
How to summer-prune your fruit trees.
When to summer prune for best results.
Why summer pruning is useful.
Which trees respond best to summer pruning.
About Gordon MacKay
Gordon started in the craft of horticulture as a young teen working in urban gardens in and around the Glasgow area under the direction of his father, a professional horticulturist.
A further pre-college year at Scotland’s largest retail garden centre was further inspiration to follow in his father’s footsteps and attend the two-year program at Threave School of Gardening in southwest Scotland. He felt privileged to be under the tutelage of Threave head gardener, Magnus Ramsay, and plant propagation, arboriculture and alpine plants soon became huge sources of interest.This led to a further three years at Pershore College of Horticulture in the nursery stock production program.
Still with an interest in plants and propagation, Gordon has always been drawn to the world of arboriculture and he feels fortunate to be able to fulfill this ambition; the majority of his work is now in pruning fruit trees.
He also teaches at the Pacific Horticulture College in Victoria and is on the relief staff as part of the Horticulture Therapy Program at Providence Farm.
Gordon is an avid beekeeper and self-confessed collector/hoarder of dwarf conifers and other unusual and unattainable plants!