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A series of video tutorials from Stephen Hayes of Fruitwise Heritage Apples all about restoring some old apple trees in an old garden newly taken over by some friends. The main problem with these trees was that they had originally been planted far too close together, the most common mistake of all.
Are you keeping up to date with Stephen Hayes’ Fruitwise apple tree pruning Videos?
This latest one is all about summer pruning.
Summer pruning is a discretionary activity for orchard keepers, so you have to decide if it’s needed or not. Where a tree puts on a lot of new growth, then it’s worth thinning it out a bit but this will vary from season to season and from tree to tree. The best time is July or August, before the apples ripen to reduce apple scab damage and increase the light levels.
Only the smaller manageable trees can be pruned in this way, not the giants.
Stephen Hayes of Fruitwise shows us what a correctly pruned apple tree should look like, at the time of a special event called bud burst.
This tree is just beginning a bud burst, with the optimal number of buds filling the available space for fruiting.
Planting a very small tree, a one year maiden. Large rootball. Plant bare rooted trees in the winter from a local nursery.
Using the saw to remove low branches. Clearing away any rubbish, vines, young trees getting in the way. Take the big branches out first before using the secateurs. Remove crossed branches, anything that’s tangled up. leaving some new , healthy looking upright facing branches. Walk around the tree and look at it from different angles. Don’t take out more than a third of the wood, and don’t cut a bit off everything all round – pudding basin haircut.
Stephen Hayes of Fruitwise heritage Apples describes pruning a neglected apple tree in another tutorial video from the youTube series.
What to do with a neglected old fruit tree? Do you want maximum fruit or a big tree to sit underneath?
Here’s one to restore. Is the tree vigourous and in the right place.
Pruning a neglected apple tree is not difficult. A few simple principles and a sharp saw will see it all right. the main thing is to use the saw to remove whole branch systems that are diseased, too low, too crowded or crossing, and mostly leave the rest of the tree alone-at least for the first year.
There is a very good section in the RHS book ‘The Fruit Garden Displayed’ on pruning neglected trees, but sadly it’s out of print.
In this video Stephen Hayes of Fruitwise Heritage Apples describes how to graft over an apple tree.
Top working or grafting over an apple tree which is sound, but not the right variety for example. This example is a Crimson King that has been grafted over to other varieties. A pencil of the chosen variety is cut in February and kept cool until around April when the tree is getting going. Saddle grafts and cleft graft techniques. Probably best not to let the graft fruit the first year, let the joint strengthen first. Will fruit heavily in only three years from being top grafted over.
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