Pruning
Full service fruit tree pruning and training for new and established fruit trees.
Pruning is one of the most important aspects of managing fruit tree health and productivity. We recommend pruning for new plantings, young trees, and established mature trees.
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Consulting
​Consultations for new plantings.
Help prevent many common issues by getting advice on rootstock and variety selection, site selection, spacing, planting and more.
Grafting
Do you have existing fruit trees that produce fruit you don't like, don't produce at all, or suffer from disease?
With custom grafting, we can graft new, desirable fruit varieties onto your existing trees. Choose from hundreds of varieties, frost tolerant apricots, disease resistant apples, etc!​
Form & Fruit is a fruit tree specialty care service in Boise, Idaho offering pruning, consulting, and grafting services.
About Me
I'm Sean and I love fruit trees. If you're here, you probably do to. Many home gardeners and plant lovers set out with dreams of beautiful trees and bountiful harvests. More often than not, these visions fall short. Why is that?
There are many reasons fruit trees can fail to thrive, but the most common is lack of understanding their specific care needs. Our beloved fruit trees, unfortunately, do not care about what we want. Their evolutionary goal is to make a fruit, pass on their genes, and that's it. If they only make 1 fruit, they have done their job! Think of the 3 year old peach tree that bears so heavily it breaks itself in half. Our goal of growing a strong, aesthetically pleasing tree form that will bear fruit for many years to come - most often does not happen naturally. That's where we come in! With careful pruning and training, we can achieve form and function, and everyone wins!
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Fruit tree pruning is at once simple and highly complex. It requires in depth knowledge of fruit tree physiology and growth characteristics, including variability across species and varieties. Fruit tree care is a specialty, and people are often disappointed in their fruit tree outcomes when following advice and care from general arborists and gardeners.
The art and science of fruit tree care has been a personal and professional passion of mine since 2008 when I began interning at the Alan Chadwick Garden in UC Santa Cruz's sustainable agriculture program.
My goal is to set you up for success, whether you are looking for do-it-all service or for an educational walk-through to teach you fruit tree pruning and care skills for you to use in the future.
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---Sean Dugan
Pricing and Quotes
This section is intended to provide a general idea of costs. Please read the following information, and then submit a quote request using the form below to receive a more specific quote for your needs. If you're considering hiring me, it's important to understand that you are hiring me for my expertise, not just my labor.
In many cases, the most valuable work I can do for you is making pruning cuts during the first 1-3 years of a new tree's development. These cuts are critical for the development of a good structure, which will pay you back with years of tree health and fruit. However, in the first few years when the tree is small it can seem like the price is high per pruning cut. In this case you are paying for my expertise in knowing where to cut, not just the labor of making many cuts. Using my expertise can save you years of fighting to restore the form of an unproductive tree that was not pruned in its early development. Hiring me for consulting can save you an abundance of time (and money) by selecting good tree planting sites, and varieties that are suited to your needs and resistant to disease. For example, choosing the right rootstock can mean the difference in getting an apple crop in 2 years vs getting a crop in 5 years.
Fruit Tree Pruning
The minimum service charge is $100. The more trees you have that need pruning, the lower the cost per tree.
The cost per tree starts at $25 per tree for new plantings and young trees. Mature trees start at $75 per tree.
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I offer pruning services from January through August, with the "winter" pruning timeframe roughly January to April and the "summer" pruning timeframe roughly June to August.
Consulting
Consultation for new plantings start at $225. Consultation for new plantings includes rootstock and variety selection with consideration of factors like planting site, fruit preferences, disease resistance, climate, etc. We also cover site selection, planting techniques, tree spacing.
I will share my experience with you to help you choose rootstocks and varieties that are most likely to work well for your needs, and avoid many of the problems that can arise at this stage.
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Grafting
The minimum service charge for grafting is $100. Cost will depend on your tree size, how many branches you want grafted, how many new varieties will be grafted.
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Grafting trees requires securing dormant scions (the new varieties) by late winter/early spring. New scions must be chosen and purchased from scionwood sellers, typically at the latest by mid-late March.
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Purvis Nursery and Orchard is one local source for scionwood. There are many mail-order scionwood businesses like Fruitwood Nursery. I also have a small selection of scionwood from varieties that I grow.
Get a Quote
Let's see how I can help you!
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Fill out the fields below, or send an email directly to formandfruit@gmail.com. Please include your approximate location, the nature of the work you want done (pruning, consulting, grafting) and include photos of existing trees.