apple tree

[smudge]

Hi while wandering around woods yesterday discovered an old apple tree (don't ask how it got there)would love to save it any advice on when& how to prune it ?ash trees taking away a lot of light will cut these back, p.s if anyone going on holiday down cornwall & enjoy cycling or walking do the camel trail amazing scenery what a joy steam train journeys must have been years ago,

[oldclaypaws]

I also have a couple that need pruning and didn't know quite how to start, so found this article useful.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/plants/fruit/8724301/How-to-prune-an-apple-tree.html

[Wendelspanswick]

We have an orchard of about 20 Apple trees of different varieties at home and my Father in law prunes them quite severely every year and they end up looking very sorry for themselves but each year they throw out loads of growth and fruit really well.
His tip is not to waste time carefully removing little stems but to be quite brutal and chop the tree back.

[oldclaypaws]

Telegraph article-

Heavy-handed pruning followed by rampant re-growth are often to blame for apple trees being in a sorry state at this time of year

[Wendelspanswick]

Only going by what my FIL has done for at least 30 years and has won awards for his fruit growing! He's retired now but we still live here on the commercial nursery site. 3 acres of fruit and flowers.

[smojo]

I found a very old crab apple tree in mine which is quite tall (drawn) and not producing much. I am wondering if some heavy pruning will revitalise that too but it is overshadowed by big trees which I don't want to remove. I'm wondering if it's just hanging on to life because it has managed to fight its way high enough to get some light and therefor cutting it back might finish it off altogether.

[oldclaypaws]

We also have a very large crab apple right on our boundary, which is partly over-shaded by adjacent sweet chestnuts and tall willows. It has two main trunks. Our neighbour asked if he could cut all the tree branches hanging over his field right along the boundary, to which we agreed. Initially I was rather shocked to find they'd chopped half of one of the crab trunks, right across it at about 10 feet. Its subsequently sending out loads of new growth over the full length of the trunk, if anything the brutal treatment seems to have revived it, it was almost akin to being coppiced. The resilience of trees is amazing.