The apple trees are now in their second year - they were planted sometime in March 2022.
In January, I pruned the Enterprise apple to a modified central leader, and tried to prune the Gala apple to an open center.
From what I understand, apple trees produce flower buds on more horizontal limbs. When the limbs go "up" the trees don't make flower buds...they just make leaves.
Since almost all of the limbs on the Enterprise apple, and some on the Gala were angled in a more "up" direction, I decided to try training them out horizontally using some pieces of privet branches that I wedged between those limbs and the main trunk.
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| Using some pieces of privet limbs as branch spreaders. |
Sadly, when I was trying spread the branches on the Gala apple, I accidentally broke one off, so I ended up pruning it to a modified central leader as well. After the second pruning, I thought it looked Ok, although it had a big open wound on the main trunk where I ripped that branch off.
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| Ouch!!!! |
Over the next few weeks, the branches adjusted to their new position. The privet sticks ended up falling out, but the branches stayed where I had put them so that training seems to have worked.
The trees have grown like crazy since they were pruned...some of the limbs have about 24" of new growth on them! But just like last year, the growth went "up" instead of out.
So this afternoon when I got off work I spent a bit of time working on the Enterprise apple.
The poor little tree kind of makes me think of the pictures of Gulliver tied to the ground in the island country of Lilliput!
But I'm happy that the branches all seem to be in a better position now. It will stay like this for the rest of the summer. I hope that there aren't any bad winds that might break the limbs, since they can't really move much.
The Gala apple was much better behaved with fewer upward growing branches. I'll work on getting those limbs tied down this weekend.
I told RAF he'll just have to make a wide path around the trees when he mows. Hopefully by the time fall gets here the strings can all come off and the limbs will stay where I want them.
And even more hopefully, maybe there will be some fruiting buds on them by next spring! I may end up doing some "tip" pruning to encourage them to develop fruiting buds, but I'll have to wait and see if I feel brave enough to do that.