Pruning very old apple tree
Pead my plants
Posts: 6
Hi all,
I was wondering if anyone would be able to give me advice on how to prune the apple tree pictured? The instructions I've found on the RHS site about renovating old trees are a bit difficult to follow.
A bit of background information. As you can see the tree isn't very well pruned and there are lots of water shoots at the top. That's my fault because I've been gradually just making the tree "smaller" over the years by cutting back without really knowing what I'm doing. When we moved into the house about 5 years ago, the garden was a jungle and the tree canopy was over 50 feed wide!
Also, I'm finding it hard to follow any tree pruning instructions since the tree is such an irregular shape. It almost looks like it has two trunks.
My goal is to just make it look nicer and be a bit easier to prune in future. I doubt it's possible but in an ideal world I'd rather it was half the height!
Thanks in advance.
Posts
Get up inside it and prune to open it out, let the light in, how it is now will have a large canopy, less flowers to fruit, if it was mine I would remove the lower left hand trunk comptely leaving just the one fairly straight trunk.
I agree and would also remove that lower left trunk, and the large branch about 3-4 foot up the straight trunk which also looks as though it is overhanging the lawn. After that I would leave it alone and have another look next winter. You shouldn't get water shoots forming from such major surgery but if you do, pull them off as soon as you see them. If you go for it, make the cuts just above the collar - excellent example here:
https://www.todayshomeowner.com/how-to-trim-large-tree-branches/
Hello,
If you want to see how radical you can go, Monty Don did a programme the other week, where he gave this particular couples' apple tree a short back and sides, literally.
I agree with the above and take the lower limb out as this is being pushed out further across the garden in order to reach the sun. Then reduce the entire canopy by at least half, including thinning out the inner branches to open it up more. Its better that you do a hard prune in year 1, then next season look at it to see what to do next. Look at the tree in each of the seasons to see how it responds as you do this.
I have inherited two apple trees, not as tall as yours but with a much wider canopy and extremely congested. I have done two years of hard pruning where I think I have reduced both trees by at least half. The one tree I will be able to revert back to regular pruning and the other one, I think I will need to take out some more. It takes longer to correct and it may or may not produce fruit for one to two years but it will come right in the end and you will get a better shape and it will be more manageable.