Apple tree pruning?

[peds]

Take up the plastic before mulching with anything. Build the soil, don't cover it.

 

Three layers of brown cardboard out to the drip line of the tree, then loads of manure, seaweed, mushroom compost, woodchip... either in layers or mixed up altogether as you please.

[agg221]

An old thread, but you might find it useful as it has pictures and explanations of approach:

 

 

Alec

[Farmerdowling]

I'm been away from this site for so long and pop back on to this glorious thread! Thank you - just one of the many things I had to ask 🤣

[Ty Korrigan]

Interesting thread, thanks.

Although I enjoy the idea of pruing fruit trees, my own but I dislike intensely doing it for clients who are often strangely attached to the most unfortunate trees.

I often get asked to but almost always reject the work apart from cherries which are less disagreable to work on.

I also won't get involved in previously hatracked trees unless a removal.

Clients mostly demand that their neglected fruit trees are pruned hard because the fruit is out of reach.

It takes alot of talk time to convince them that reducing it to a hatrack will not bring them bushels of fruit.

I could talk about the merits of a regular pruning regime but there is little money to be made from this service which they see as low value work.

When I'm retired, I might consider a side hustle in fruit tree pruning to bolster my meagre pension.

Clients here often insist that treat the wounds with 'cicatrisant' which is ,mostly bees wax, thoughts and prayers.

On a pre-covid visit to the U.K, I saw my sister had used the local tree surgeon who had transformed their large mature Brambley into a complete sphere. It really was quite striking in it's perfection and must have take many hours to achieve using secateurs as they paid a couple of hundred for this. My brother-in-law was made up with it and laughed when I told them that there will be no fruit for a year and in a couple of years it will be almost double the size. 

I am sad to write that I was right and they had to buy their cooking apples from Tesco and the tree turned into a massive ball of skinny shoots even quicker than I predicted.

     Stuart

[agg221]

I spent a peaceful half-hour in the orchard today, pruning a few more trees. It's a very relaxing sort of job - quiet (nothing more than a Silky and a pair of secateurs) and almost meditative in its semi-repetitive forming of patterns.

 

I took a few before and after photos - it was a bit dark for some of them to work (trees against a background of trees in the twilight is not very useful) but this pair show something I think. In the second picture, note how it is thinner and the branches have been bent into shape where necessary, mostly by wedging other bits of branch (mostly offcuts from somewhere else) in place to bring them down.

 

Alec

Edited January 30, 2022 by agg221

[Ty Korrigan]

13 hours ago, agg221 said:

I spent a peaceful half-hour in the orchard today, pruning a few more trees. It's a very relaxing sort of job - quiet (nothing more than a Silky and a pair of secateurs) and almost meditative in its semi-repetitive forming of patterns.

 

I took a few before and after photos - it was a bit dark for some of them to work (trees against a background of trees in the twilight is not very useful) but this pair show something I think. In the second picture, note how it is thinner and the branches have been bent into shape where necessary, mostly by wedging other bits of branch (mostly offcuts from somewhere else) in place to bring them down.

 

Alec

How are the ones I delivered from France doing?

Post Brexit phytosanitaire regs have put a stop to private individuals importing plants.

   Stuart