Help with pruning, re-starting fruit trees?

[Mare Owner]

Does anyone have any tips or resources on revitalizing long neglected apple, crabapple, or plum trees? The ones here are really sad and pathetic and don't produce well (except for one apple tree).

I can find a lot on how to prune and train them, but since these are so long neglected I don't know where to start. I am waiting until winter to prune, as that is supposed to be safer (less chance for disease to spread, no bugs) and invigorate their growth the next season.

How much is safe to trim at a time? And when they are a mess, what is most important to trim? One has suckers that have grown to be trees themselves even, very messy.

Thanks for any advice.

[Millymollymandy]

That sounds like fun!!!

As far as I am aware (from research and books), you prune apples during the dormant season (that'll be about Dec to Feb) but plums are pruned after they have fruited. I do mine in September. Apparently if you prune plums in winter you risk getting silver leaf disease - although I don't know what that is!

With really overgrown trees the main thing is not to try to do it all in one go. You can do the pruning over 2-4 years - the first year it would be best to remove the suckers and any diseased wood and any obvious crossing of branches (the aim is to open up the tree and let more light in to the fruiting branches).

The next year you can start to look at the shape of the tree and take it from there.

Of course everywhere you cut off a branch you'll get a load of shoots, most of which need to then be cut off the next winter.

Then there is the specific pruning of each fruiting bit of the tree and the formation of fruiting spurs etc - all rather specialised and I'm still trying to understand all of that myself! For that you need a good book with diagrams!

[ohareward]

Hi Mareowner. If you scroll down to another posting titled, Apple Tree Help, Please, You will see a posting I wrote on the subject.

Robin

[Mare Owner]

Thanks for the replies. I did go read the other thread also, lots of good info. I'll try and get a pic this winter of some of my trees before I start, some are sure interesting the way they have gotten so overgrown!