Summer pruning my patio apple trees
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- čas přidán 12. 08. 2023
- The whole point of pruning apple trees in summer is to encourage them to grow more fruit buds rather than foliage - hence to give you bigger harvests.
Today I'm taking you through how I prune my apple trees in summer, they are columnar, also called cordon, patio or pillar. I'm going to show you how simple and easy it can be. These trees are meant to be grown as narrow tall trees so they require quite a hard prune. Your trees might not be the same type as mine so always double check before you copy me. This is specifically for my type of tree.
1 When do you know it’s time to prune and
2 how do you do it to get more apples rather than leaves.
So let’s prune my columnar apple trees.
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Thank you guys for the best video on summer pruning apple tree ❤
Awwwwww glad you’ve found it useful 😁
Thank you so much for being so clear about the process. Great video!
I heartily recommend these columnar trees… everything about them is just simpler
Thanks Eli, this is super-helpful. I've got a dwarf apple tree with one branch that has loads of wee apples right at the end. Will deffo be trying this out in August so I don't have the same thing happen next year!
Oh I’m glad this will help.
It genuinely made a huge difference to us… tree is full of apples again this year
Fantastic video! You've taken one of the scariest summer gardening tasks and explained it in an understandable way that will help many attempt summer pruning. Your pruning will stimulate so many fruiting spurs that your tree will be loaded next year.
Let’s hope so…. Only months away from harvest for this year….
You guys are too funny! I love it! Good job Kate! My 2 apple trees are 3 yrs old! Only 1 fruited! The thought of pruning intimidates me! Thank you Eli and Kate! You've lowered my fears!
It is really scary when you’ve never done it before!!! 😍😍😍
You are an amazing teacher.
Awwwww
Thank you
Not sure Kate agrees
10/10 for bravery Kate, always lovely to see you on screen 🙂 great information as always Eli, thank you!
She was very brave…. I know how scary it is first time 😍
@@eliandkate it’s the sane for all of us first time… tho made a lot easier being shown by you 😄
Great video thanks! I could feel the stress myself...fruit tree pruning is one job I dread! 😂 I think I need a cuppa..🫖
I think Kate is still recovering
I’m just praying nothing goes wrong with the trees this year or she’ll blame herself
Love your garden, I too am scared to prune my apple trees are fairly new only 1 has a few apples on, i will take my phone with me and watch your video again, Wish me luck 😮
Mine didn’t have any fruit at all last year and when I asked for advice, summer pruning was the number one suggestion
Great job Kate! You explain it so well Eli, I am hoping that one day in the future I will have to reference this video :)
Fingers crossed
Fantastic healthy apple trees .... W❤W .... I can't believe how they've grown .... incredible ...
I absolutely love the 'science' behind gardening ....its fascinating ....
Kates so brave ...well done 😊😊 xxxx
We were just saying today how much they’ve grown 😂😂😂
Good job pruning your apple tree. Love that dahlia in the corner.
It’s gorgeous ain’t it.
It’s Kate’s favourite this year
Kate had a perfect opportunity to snip into your hair when you were talking about the two different times of the year to prune 😂
Ha ha ha she’s far too we’ll behaved for that
❤❤❤ brilliant video! Made this so much clearer. Thanks 😊
Glad it’s useful Kevin
Thank you for the really useful information. Great job Kate!
She’s still recovering from the stress 😂😂😂
Very good tutorial Eli. You are an excellent teacher.
Glad you enjoyed it Lee…. Kate is still recovering 😂😂😂
This was amazing! I always wanted to learn how to prune apple trees. You made it seem easy!
Columnar trees are much easier to manage than traditional trees 😁
Well done Kate! 🍎🍏🍎😊
She did awesome didn’t she 😍
@@eliandkate Yep! Apple for the teacher 🥰
😂😂😂
Thanks.
Hope it’s helpful
Thank you this awesome video :D
Glad you think so Jason 😁
I was taught to cut off any limbs that were vertical off a horizontal limb that comes out of the main trunk. It made my apples huge.
Yup so that’s the part where I was telling Kate to take them down to just one single bud or leave… the horizontals (main branches) down to 3. It seems really brutal to folk who have standard trees but that’s the point of a columnar tree, to keep it very narrow
Hi guys thanks for this I’ve only just pruned my 15 year old apple tree and it’s usually a bit of a hit and miss and I realise that this could be the reason my harvest are the same. Thanks for the tips xx
Hope it helps 😍😍😍
❤❤❤❤❤❤ thanks from Sweden.
Our pleasure!
It’s almost February and time to prune for us! Hope to see some improvement!
I’ll be doing my winter prune in a week or so
pruning also thickens up main stem so thats good especially fruit trees
Hurrah
Hahahaha, hehehee! Kate's face @5:01: priceless!
Seriously, thank you for this soothing, repetitive, talking through and close-up look at the pruning points. I like Kate's "knobbly bits" more than 'basal clusters', which sound like some sort of cancer.
I find this video very meditative; I will replay a few times so I can have Eli's voice in my head before running out (with sharpened and cleaned secateurs) to have a look at my peach to see how many of these learning points apply. Lovely, lovely apples you have! Thank you for the lesson!
Ha ha ha
Just do a wee check on your tree and pruning before copying me remember.
I was pruning a cordon apple… it’s maybe not the same
@@eliandkate No worries; I will check plant-specific pruning practices b4 'snick, snick', but just wanted to say thanks to both of you for getting me over that fear factor.
I wanna hear all about how it goes 😁
Leaves protect the fruit..and provide needed nutrients from the sun..
Very true and that’s why you don’t just take everything off
We call them columnar trees in US. We can’t prune now here because new growth would get froze off in winter.
Thank you, thank you.
I have just used this advice to prune my first season apple trees. Only have leaves this year, but they were from May, so fingers crossed 🤞🏻 for next year.
Any advice for plums and cherries?
Fingers crossed
Afraid I don’t grow plums or cherries but I’ve been told all cordon trees are the same… but I’d do a wee bit of research before you go mad 😍
Great job you two !!❤ .. I think I have never pruned my Apple tree.. but I think I will try it now.. I have to do the pear too anyhow.
How about cherry??? Wozld you do them now to?? Great video ❣ thanks 🙂
Depending on the type of tree you might not need to prune it for a while. Because mine is a cordon tree it needs quite specific pruning
Afraid I don’t grow other fruit trees so I’m maybe not your best source for your cherries
Awww great job Kate. Thanks Eli for the lesson. Great video. I have an apple and pruned it blindly and instinctively. But it grew back with a vengeance and produced.😊 But my question is the tall skinny branch at the top which I also have and last summer one apple grew at the bottom of it. Does that need to be pruned off?
hmmm I'm guessing you mean the top of the tree?
It doesn't NEED to be pruned, but I do just to manage the size. No point in a huge tall tree that I can't reach :D
@@eliandkate yes that straight scraggler. I see it as a energy being wasted when it could go to the apples. Thank you then I am definitely pruning that. I see as a rooster tail like a kid that has that piece of hair that won't stay down 😂 you and Kate have a lovely warm dry weekend. 😊🤣
My winter pruning of my store bought Granny Smith looks like it has provided successful propagation (at least two of three seem to have some green growth). I also have some saved seed apple trees that I've finally planted out... so I will be curious to see how they all go. I'm not sure how confident I will be pruning them back in Summer.... but I'll see how I go. :D
just see how things go... no pressure :D
Great detailed tips. What would happen if you prune the main stem to shorten it for accessibility? Would that harm the tree?
Do the same techniques work on other fruit trees?
Oh, and the orange Dahlias (correct me if I were wrong) in the background are so beautiful ☺
Now, to get myself an apple tree and try out these instructions 😁
With the cordon trees they generally only grow to about 3m but a lot of folk do prune the tops to keep them manageable
Getting ready to prune couple of branches nervous as all he'll. Got tons of apples almost ready to go
How old is your tree? Do you have more apples than us?
Wondering what I can expect a columnar tree to produce in coming years.
Ours is two years old and we have about 20 apples on each
@eliandkate 1st summer planted. Tons of apples. It's a home depot clearance tree. It's crazy. With winter coming and the snow looming I don't want it to break. It's wonky crazy looking. My pollinator tree is neat n tidy but no apples. Up here in maine apples are getting ready to be harvested and I'm wondering after picking can I hard prune this wacky insanity back. 😅. It's quite clear this clearance tree was never cared for till it came here. Googling like a mad person what to do.
Can I just check, before you copy me. It is a columnar tree? It’s not a standard apple tree?
@@eliandkate regular 🍎
Ah ok…. So my video is about pruning a columnar apple tree…. So worth doing a wee check on best way to summer prune a standard tree 😁
Good information. I wish the camera was closer to actually show the cuts. I just got two columnar apple trees which are much smaller so this is really helpful to me at this time.
Yeah I would have liked to be able to get a clearer view as well but it was just impossible to get in there. There’s not a lot of space and the tree is just so compact that there were leaves covering everything we tried to show… hence my last minute trying to doodle some pictures for you 😂
Thank you.@@eliandkate
Just wondering if you should take the height down as well.... thanks for the information 👍
Yeah we’re planning on taking the height down just to make life easier
@@eliandkate you could always get a ladder 🪜...lol
Nah that’s too much like hard work 😂😂😂
Great video. Do you know if it’s the same for all fruit trees.
I can’t say Suzy I don’t grow any others
Sorry
Hi Eli.Please tell me where the two red Falstaff on M26 were bought? They look very healthy considering the weather we had in Scotland this summer. Thanks
They were from Pamona fruits 😀
Thank you@@eliandkate
Soooooo.....my 3yr old Bramley has never fruited. Earlier this year it was full of aphids. It has an egremont russet for pollination. If i do your method of pruning, might that help me have apples next year?? Tia x
It might do, as well as checking in your watering and feeding. If you are growing in containers like me, you really need to be on top of the watering and feeding. But also…. Worth noting that I’m pruning a columnar tree… so if yours aren’t columnar then you might wanna look at more traditional ways of doing summer pruning. My tree is meant to be grown as a thin column
@@eliandkate they are grown as traditional trees, in what I think is still quite poor soil. But I shall have to prune it as I can't get past now, never mind next year! I will rewatch your video and perhaps do just one side as a trial.. thx x
Ha ha ha yeah we had the not being able to get past problem 😂😂😂😂
@@eliandkate 😁😁😁
Oh so scary pruning the tree. You may have convinced me to prune mine now….. maybe. Still scared tho
Yay!!! Be brave
Isnt pruning in the warmer months risky due to the threat of disease and pests infecting your tree due to the open wounds?
Pruning any time is always a risk, but summer isn’t any riskier than winter. But any cut is always a risk hence the advice of clean. Sharp tools.
The point of pruning at the different times of year is to encourage different types of growth.
Summer will encourage fruit production whereas winter will encourage leafy growth.
What about the top bit as they look like they’re getting too tall? ❤❤
We had decided today that we were going to prune the tip to make the top of the tree more reachable. These types of trees generally only get to about 3m talks but for me that’s quite tall 😂😂😂
@@eliandkate 😂😂😂
Don’t you take any off the top ?
I probably will… haven’t decided on the final height yet