Can anyone help please... when is the best time to prune and shape my young (3 years) citrus trees?

From my RHS guidebook, citrus trees can stand severe pruning!
Having said that, it would appear that all you need do is as per many shrubs:
-cut out any inward growing branches to allow light into the centre
-prune out any awkward/misshapen growing branches
-prune to your desired shape

Best done before spring, after any risk of likely frost.

I've got a few 2yr old bitter orange trees grown from pips (we have to go to France to buy our Seville oranges for marmalade since they don't market them here!) & I'll probably leave them be for another couple of years or so.

Hope that's some help.

I was told by my Spanish neighbour to prune all fruit trees early January before the sap rises. Just going out to do my lemon tree now. Nectarine and plum done last week. I have been doing this for the last four to five years and always have an abundance of fruit.

Local knowledge is always best, though sometimes tempered by common sense or even science!
Here many prune when the moon is "menguante" (waning), such as now. Sometimes one doesn't always need to prune.
Frost is the big decider. Obviously down south is different to here in the north, but having said that, local temperatures must be the key to deciding what's best.

Thanks everyone... I feel a pruning session coming on

I know people say that now is the time to do it but it seems wrong when;

• There is still loads of fruit on them
• There is loads of blossom

Does it not affect next years (this years) yield?

Blossom & fruit now?
Which trees?

We have a lemon tree with fruit and flowers on. Had first lemon in GandT this week.

We also have a fabulous "Jaffa" Ornage tree with loads of fruit that will , as usual, last us to March. Can't see any flowers on that one though. Oh and we are well above the 1000 foot cut off point for growing citrus.

All our orange trees are in flower and in fruit (sweet, blood and seville oranges). Also, lemon trees around here are in fruit and in flower.

We've just picked our seville (sour) oranges and some lemons so are in full 'English Marmalade' production again.

They may be flowering now but that is probably because of the variety. There are late and early varieties. The normal orange will not flower until the spring and fruit just before Xmas. Other varieties, such as the famous "Valencia Late" are different.

Lemons are much the same unless it is the "Lunar" lemon which flowers and crops throughout the year.

You also sometimes get a phantom flowering. We have a Mandarina which flowers in spring and fruits in winter but it flowered again profusely in November!

I would only prune oranges to open up the centre if they get too dense but lemons can get very straggly and need pruning to keep the shape under control.

It's also worth remembering that most citrus are grafted onto different root stock and you sometimes get prolific shoots from low down below the graft. These should be removed as soon as they appear - it's like the suckers you get on roses for the same reason.

I recall an orange tree in the Canaries which produced fruit all the year round.
At any one time part would be in flower, part in early stage of fruit development and part producing ripe fruit.

I can only presume it was done by grafting, as is the case with one near here which produces both lemons and oranges from the same tree.

At the risk of terminal drift, why do the trunks get painted white ?

Ants don't like crossing white paint.

Now I don't know if Michael is being extracted. I would have believed rats.

No, apparently it works. Personally I use a band of grease around the trunk or the sticky double sided tape that you can buy. Both of those solutions definitely work.