ducks4you
Garden Master
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2009
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Gotta thank you ALL for your advice. After reading here, and studying up, I finally got my DH to help me do some serious pruning. All of my younger fruit trees, the 2 Montmorency Cherries, the Spiced Pear, the ??? Red Apple and the really old Peach tree look really good after the cutting. There was very little dead wood on any of these, and I followed the rules: no more than 25% New wood, lop off straight vertical limbs, or at least the top of them, cut off dead wood, prune to lower and try to cut the limbs at the trunk. I used my reciprocating saw bc it plugs in.
My poor old Golden Delicious apple tree is now less than 1/2 of what it was in 2011, but I have never pruned it before, so I'm sure it needed it. I'm sure the drought didn't help it. The one big limb that looked like it wanted to split had a 4 inch rotten spot where we cut it off. It was about 10 inches in diameter. Two of the smaller limbs were almost completely dead and yesterday I spotted the top of another limb that needs to come off this weekend. The temperature has cooperated. It's been a very cool Spring. None of any of my trees--I have over 50 trees, counting the evergreens, and flowering trees and bushes--has begun to leaf out, so there isn't a bug issue. I'm attacking them like you do when you need to trim back your dog's really long nails, take some now, and take some later meaning NEXT year. The only other fruit trees to prune are the Bartlett Pear (3 years old), and GD Apple (2012 purchase), and Peach (2012 purchase), and another GD apple tree (it belong to the horses since I re-fenced in 2008). THAT one can be pruned from the ground bc it partially fell over with the previous owner, then grew upwards.
Btw, I've been making tomato stakes out of the pruning leftovers.
Anybody want pictures?
My poor old Golden Delicious apple tree is now less than 1/2 of what it was in 2011, but I have never pruned it before, so I'm sure it needed it. I'm sure the drought didn't help it. The one big limb that looked like it wanted to split had a 4 inch rotten spot where we cut it off. It was about 10 inches in diameter. Two of the smaller limbs were almost completely dead and yesterday I spotted the top of another limb that needs to come off this weekend. The temperature has cooperated. It's been a very cool Spring. None of any of my trees--I have over 50 trees, counting the evergreens, and flowering trees and bushes--has begun to leaf out, so there isn't a bug issue. I'm attacking them like you do when you need to trim back your dog's really long nails, take some now, and take some later meaning NEXT year. The only other fruit trees to prune are the Bartlett Pear (3 years old), and GD Apple (2012 purchase), and Peach (2012 purchase), and another GD apple tree (it belong to the horses since I re-fenced in 2008). THAT one can be pruned from the ground bc it partially fell over with the previous owner, then grew upwards.
Btw, I've been making tomato stakes out of the pruning leftovers.
Anybody want pictures?
