Growing Apple Trees? Check Out These Pruning Tips To Boost Growth

tree care Croydon

Do you have apple trees in your garden? Fruit trees need special care to help grow more fruits. Pruning is essential for all trees as it keeps diseases at bay and promotes healthy growth. An apple tree is one of the most common trees that most gardens have. Apples come in a wide range of varieties, and you need to look after this tree properly to harvest a good amount of fruits. Early summer to mid-winter is generally the best time to harvest apples. We suggest hiring tree surgeons for the appropriate tree care in Croydon. Let’s dive deeper into the subject in this blog below.

 

How to Prune Apple Trees

 

Well, the basics of pruning apple trees are nothing different from pruning other fruit trees, But pruning apple trees requires you to consider other additional factors as well.

 

  • Certain varieties of apples are spur bearers, whereas some are tip bearers. Both of them require different pruning.

  • Another factor you need to keep in mind is that these trees can grow on varieties of rootstocks.

 

Tip Bearing vs Spur Bearing

 

  • Most apples are typically spur-bearers, meaning they bear fruits on a 2-year-old or older wood. You will find this wood in the short fruit-bearing form called spurs.

 

  • Spur-bearing ones are generally slow-growing leafy shoots and a mixed (both leaves and flowers) terminal bud.

 

  • Tip-bearing varieties are fewer as it bears fruit as clusters near the longer shoots’ tips. You will find considerably less spur, and they also have a greater length of bare wood between shoots and buds.

 

Please note that certain varieties are mixed, i.e. both spur and tip bearing.

 

You need to understand the type of your tree before moving ahead with pruning.

 

Tips for pruning spur-bearing apple trees

 

  • For older trees, just remove overcrowded spurs, as they will have less fruit buds.

 

  • You can also reduce the laterals on each branch to promote spur growth. But you can avoid pruning short laterals.

 

  • A 2-year-old spur is most likely to have just a couple of new laterals. You can shorten each of them to encourage healthy spur growth.

 

Tips for pruning tip-bearing apple trees

 

  • First, identify the growth of new laterals and shoots, as they must be left unpruned.

 

  • If the trees are mature, renewal pruning is what we recommend for the removal of older fruiting laterals.

 

Manor Gardens Tree Care offers a wide range of varieties of tree care services in Croydon. Book an appointment with us today, and let us help you have a healthy garden.

Don’t Miss These Important Tips to Prune Small Trees and Shrubs

tree care Croydon

Do you know the right way to trim your shrubs and small trees? Pruning is important to remove the dead and dry stubs and branches to make room for new growth. It is the best thing you can do for your plants. Here are some of the easy pruning practices and the ways to do it for shrubs and small trees in your garden. We also suggest hiring professional tree care in Croydon to ease the task.

Basic Pruning Tips For the Beautiful Garden

Pruning a Tree

Shape the tree gradually over the period of several years once the tree is a few years old. It will maximise foliage as well as flowering. The branches of the trees must be well-spaced up the trunk and spiralling around it. Do not prune over one-fourth of the tree’s total area annually. Remove the lowest branches to raise the crown of the trees.

Pruning Small Flowering Trees

Refrain from pruning a newly planted or young tree. This is because it requires as many leaves as possible to enable producing food necessary for the growth of roots. Remove injured, dead or broken branches and always ensure to prune back to a healthy branch or stem without leaving stubs.

When Should You Remove an Entire Branch of a Tree?

Use a pruning saw to cut branches over 1 inch in diameter to prevent ripping or stripping bark. Cust as close to the branch collar. Follow these three steps:

On the limb’s bottom, between 6 to 12 inches from the trunk, cut nearly 1/4th of the way through.

Through the limb from the top, nearly one inch above the initial cut.

Entirely via the short remainder stub from top to bottom, right above the branch collar.

Remove suckers- the fast-growing stems that grow up from the base of the trunk or from the roots and water sprouts- the extravigorous shoots that grow directly up from the branches or trunk.

Mature trees don’t need frequent pruning. Simply occasional pruning is enough to retain their appearance and structure. Avoid cutting off the top of a tree’s canopy to decrease its size. It makes them less attractive and more susceptible to pests and weak growth.

Manor Gardens Tree Care offers a wide range of garden services in Croydon. Contact us today or check our website to learn more about our services.