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Advice please

MCEllaMCElla Posts: 9
in Problem solving

Any advice welcome! We have inherited a crab apple in our new house. When we moved in last January 15 it was completely bare. It flowered gloriously and set fruit which has been amazing all through winter, but is still almost all hanging there. Carol Klein mentions this in an old article, but doesn't say when or what is the best way to remove them. We've had lots of gales so I assume they are going to need to be pulled quite hard, but I don't want to damage the buds which are just starting. Help please????

Posts

  • RedwingRedwing Posts: 1,511

    I would leave them. If there is a late cold spell the birds will eat then and if not they will just fall off in due course. I have a crab apple which holds it's berries through a mild winter but in a cold winter they all get eaten.

    Based in Sussex, I garden to encourage as many birds to my garden as possible.
  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 15,039

    Leave them alone, all will be fine.

    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
  • MCEllaMCElla Posts: 9

    Thanks. Birds haven't touched them at all so far despite expectations! I'll wait for them to fall.

  • HeyJudeHeyJude Posts: 26

    our blackbirds and tits are loving the crab apples which are still on our tree. I'd leave them there, let nature take care of itself?

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,142

    I noticed today that a wild crab apple tree I pass frequently had dropped it's apples within the last couple of days image


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • MCEllaMCElla Posts: 9

    Thanks, I guess nature knows what she's doing in the long run. 

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