My husband wants to thin the interior branches of the citrus trees will it be OK to do them now (January)? We understand you should keep them thinned so a bird can fly through? They have been in 4 yrs, purchased from a local nursery.

Hi Jean, generally citrus don't need pruning unless they are growing in a direction you don’t want them to. The only pruning you should need to do is remove dead, dying or decayed wood and trim if the tree is unbalanced or to reshape.

At this time of year (January) you need to be careful of lemon tree borer. The adult flies and lays its eggs on wounds and the larvae burrows into the stem, weakening the tree. If you do want to prune now use a suitable pruning paste or water based paint to seal the wound so that the adult lemon tree borer can't lay its eggs. Birds don’t need to fly through lemon trees as bees pollinate citrus not birds.