edie:

In the future, do not, rpt. not, prune your little apple tree in the late dormant period. By pruning now, you may have ensured that your tree will not bloom much, if at all, this season and maybe the next. The little "nubs" you pruned off may have been fruiting wood. Your pruning will result in rapid vegetative growth of multiple shoots at the pruned points, which will delay fruiting and require even more pruning next time around.

Instead, prune your apple tree in late summer, say late July or even into August. Yes, I mean when there are leaves on the tree. Prune it, leaves and all. This will result in attenuation of the tree's vigorous growth, and encourage the formation of fruiting spurs that will grow in later in the same summer season that you prune.

I hear what you are saying about your tree not matching any of the illustrations of the perfectly pruned trees in books and on websites. Very few of our trees want to look like that, but we can guide them in that direction. As for the stripped bark, it may cause no problems, but you can take another cut lower down on an uninjured part of of the branch. Get a shaper pruning shears (Felco is the best) or sharpen the one you have. And rotate the pruner a little on larger branches as you squccze to help obtain a clean cut.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Oh dear, I thought you were always supposed to prune in spring. Well, as little as the tree is I am not expecting anything off of it this year anyway, I'd rather it work on growing. I will watch for the multiple shoots and prune them off in the summer. Thanks for your help!

Edie this is not a bad time to prune, but you do need to keep those little nubs on because they are often the fruiting spurs. I do all of my thinning cuts in the winter (now), removing limbs which are too close to one another. In the summer I just hedge things back -- chop all the new growth back by half. So winter pruning is OK but it works best if also combined with summer pruning to reduce vigor.

One interesting lesson I had on the effect of summer pruning is a deer ate a good chunk off of one of my trees one summer, and that part of the tree is now completely covered with fruiting spurs -- the hard summer pruning of the deer did a lot better job than I had been able to do to encourage fruiting wood.

Scott

Scott;

I have some deer that I would like to offer for pruning service.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

edie:

There is one other thing I should mention about your little tree, and I don't mean the deer. That was a joke.

Trees that have a vertical growth orientation need to have their lateral branches spread at an angle of at least 60 degrees to be most fruitful. Normally, apple trees are grown with a single central leader, bracing the side branches against the leader using commercial branch spreaders, making your own spreaders with dowels and nails, or tying or weighting the branches down. Quite frequently, central leader trees will develop multiple vertical central branches, and when this occurs, remove the stronger ones and leave only the weakest.

After the tree has grown up and reached maturity at about 8-10 years, you can cut off the central leader, as I have done with many of my apple trees, leaving a circular arrangement of 5-8 angled branches. This provides an ideal environment for the development of fruiting wood, and exposes the fruit to the sun, which is important to achieve maximum size, best appearance, and high-sugar fruit quality.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Thank you all so very much. At least I didn't cut ALL the nubs off, thank goodness. Since the tree is so tiny yet I think the best way to spread the limbs is to just tie them down. Thank you for telling me about that. I really do appreciate it.

Don -
Are you saying your apple trees only have 5-8 branches on the entire tree? Or are there a few "levels" of 5-8 branches coming off the trunk every few feet?

In other words are there 5 branches coming off the trunk say at 4 ft. off the ground, and then another set of 5 branches at 6 ft. off the ground and then another set at 8 ft.? Or there just one whorl of branches?

Thanks,
Bart

Bart:

I have several smaller trees with more than one level of branches, and several mature trees with just one whorl of mature branches. One whorl, originating at about 4 feet, is just about idead from my perspective, and the small trees will eventually end up that way.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Thanks! I just planted a Pink Lady from Adams County and it had about 8 or so branches coming off the trunk in all directions in a vertical span of about 6 inches. Is my "pruning" work done on this tree? If I just maintain these 8 branches (and spread them) and remove the new ones that try to grow tall or establish themselves as the central leader, is my work done?

Thanks again,
Bart

Bart:

That must have been a nicely shaped tree from Adams County, but no, your pruning work is not done as long as you own a living, growing tree. It might be easier, more efficient, and your tree might be more fruitful, but done is not the word.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA