DaveC74

Wow, thanks for that folks, that's really useful. I'm not going to be too critical of the person who pruned it before as it's a family member who has since passed away - as it's at my elderly mum's house what happens is subject to negotiation. I'm going for a general balance of .... 1:) Thinning out the top quite a lot, especially in the middle 2:) Targetting branches that look like they'll rub against other branches or bend around mad angles 3:) Trying to largely leave healthier looking branches alone where possible. 4:) Not being too drastic - only so many branches, so it still looks like a tree. It's been a very dry year (lawn seems to have hardly grown!) so whenever we do get rain I end up with buckets of water from our shed gutter, I give those to the apple tree. I hope to put a mulch circle in, not full width but just a metre or so out - that's complicated too as there are about four parakeets buried under the tree! Great stuff - much appreciated! Dave C

Hi all, Thanks for reading, We have a small apple tree that's been in the middle of our garden for at least 60 years! In recent years it hasn't been in good shape, quite a lot of small dead branches covered in this stuff pictured, now larger branches, sometimes showing just a couple of leaves on the end. We've reached the point where there are no leaves or small branches in the lower half of the tree. Side note, unusually it hasn't grown any apples this year! If anyone knows what this is - and even better what my best course of action might be to try to fix it we'd be very grateful. Thanks a lot! Dave C p.s. I thought I'd branch out a little, turn over a new leaf and see if someone here can get to the roots of the problem!