Thank you - the weather is looking a bit dodgy now, but hopefully we get away with it under cover. I have an apricot tree outdoors that I am more worried about, though only a few flowers have opened so far so we might get away with it :)
Great video. The other benefit of pruning out vertical growth is that you end up maintaining a much more easily harvestable crop, ideally only requiring step ladders rather than a cherry picker.
Really interesting and informing! By accident I seem to have been doing what you suggest (not by design!). Like some others we have a height restriction on one boundary of our garden for bushes trees etc. So three years ago I planted an apple tree and needed to keep its height down. Accordingly I decided to try to 'espalier' (?) it and use bamboo canes to straighten the shoots, also removing the strong verticals. I am awaiting this years blossom, but last year it was fantastic. We also have a young cherry that this year I will train its branches towards the ground, and I note your 'warning' about it wanting to grow vertically! My thanks, great to see you again.
Great - you should be able to keep an apple espalier nicely under control and did the right thing removing the strong vertical shoots 👍 A cherry festoon should look very nice indeed, especially when in flower :)
Hi Jonny, Last year I mentioned how disappointed I was when our Mirabelle "fruit buds" produced only green growth and your comment was to give it a few more years (it being 4 years mature at the time). Well, this season the whole of the tree is covered and I mean covered with many hundreds of opening blossom. The tree itself has the appearance of a spikey wild hedge plum. So, now we just have to wait to see if it is an actual Mirabelle. Thank you for really demonstrating the consequences when selecting potential fruiting wood. Many regards, Peter
Hi Peter. That is great! It does sound like a mirabelle - they are more scruffy and wild looking that their more highly bred cousins, the plums, and I think one might expect them to take a bit longer to produce. As it is the first year of flowering, you may find that it aborts a great many... but, still, if it is covered with blossom and the weather isn't too nasty, hopefully you get a decent crop.
Your content is so helpful Jonny! I have a question for you - if you cut back a peach fan year after year to a couple of buds above a scaffold branch - does it mean that your tree/permanent structure is continually getting (slightly) bigger each year? What would happen if you were to cut to the base of the old fruited wood, would you eventually run out of buds to grow on? Apologies if you covered this elsewhere!
Those are good questions! In theory, yes. As you have noted, if one followed the routine pruning, where replacement shoots are chosen for each piece of fruiting wood, the fruiting wood will move further out each year and in a restricted space one could imagine that there may come a point at which one could not accommodate any new wood. In practice, though, this doesn't happen for two reasons. First, one can always make a stub cut to remove old fruited wood and, typically, dormant buds nearer the base will then develop. Second, shoots will arise from older wood too - quite often in unexpected areas that one would think were dormant. These can be used to renew some of the framework branches and I am often replacing parts of the framework that one would generally consider permanent. This is something that I routinely do when a suitable shoot appears, so there aren't any branches that are sufficiently long lived that the fruiting wood would move too far from the framework, and if one were to cut back parts of the framework that would also encourage new shoots to develop. Over the expected productive lifetime of a peach tree, it isn't a problem :)
Ohh exciting tickling the peach time 👍. Hopefully you aren’t slammed with too much freezing weather 🤞🙏. Have a fantastic week stay safe, Ali 🥰🇨🇦 3:21
Thank you - the weather is looking a bit dodgy now, but hopefully we get away with it under cover. I have an apricot tree outdoors that I am more worried about, though only a few flowers have opened so far so we might get away with it :)
Top tips as always Jonny - I'm thinking I may have to add a festoon or two this year, they would look fantastic covered in blossom 😊🌸🌸🌸
The first fruit tree I planted many years ago was a victoria plum and it made a wonderful festoon - so much fruit :)
Great video. The other benefit of pruning out vertical growth is that you end up maintaining a much more easily harvestable crop, ideally only requiring step ladders rather than a cherry picker.
Yes, that's another good point. Makes the plants easier to protect as well, should that be necessary.
Really interesting and informing! By accident I seem to have been doing what you suggest (not by design!). Like some others we have a height restriction on one boundary of our garden for bushes trees etc. So three years ago I planted an apple tree and needed to keep its height down. Accordingly I decided to try to 'espalier' (?) it and use bamboo canes to straighten the shoots, also removing the strong verticals. I am awaiting this years blossom, but last year it was fantastic. We also have a young cherry that this year I will train its branches towards the ground, and I note your 'warning' about it wanting to grow vertically! My thanks, great to see you again.
Great - you should be able to keep an apple espalier nicely under control and did the right thing removing the strong vertical shoots 👍 A cherry festoon should look very nice indeed, especially when in flower :)
Hi Jonny, Last year I mentioned how disappointed I was when our Mirabelle "fruit buds" produced only green growth and your comment was to give it a few more years (it being 4 years mature at the time). Well, this season the whole of the tree is covered and I mean covered with many hundreds of opening blossom. The tree itself has the appearance of a spikey wild hedge plum. So, now we just have to wait to see if it is an actual Mirabelle. Thank you for really demonstrating the consequences when selecting potential fruiting wood. Many regards, Peter
Hi Peter. That is great! It does sound like a mirabelle - they are more scruffy and wild looking that their more highly bred cousins, the plums, and I think one might expect them to take a bit longer to produce. As it is the first year of flowering, you may find that it aborts a great many... but, still, if it is covered with blossom and the weather isn't too nasty, hopefully you get a decent crop.
You should have a lot more subscribers!
Thank you very much :)
Your content is so helpful Jonny!
I have a question for you - if you cut back a peach fan year after year to a couple of buds above a scaffold branch - does it mean that your tree/permanent structure is continually getting (slightly) bigger each year?
What would happen if you were to cut to the base of the old fruited wood, would you eventually run out of buds to grow on?
Apologies if you covered this elsewhere!
Those are good questions! In theory, yes. As you have noted, if one followed the routine pruning, where replacement shoots are chosen for each piece of fruiting wood, the fruiting wood will move further out each year and in a restricted space one could imagine that there may come a point at which one could not accommodate any new wood. In practice, though, this doesn't happen for two reasons. First, one can always make a stub cut to remove old fruited wood and, typically, dormant buds nearer the base will then develop. Second, shoots will arise from older wood too - quite often in unexpected areas that one would think were dormant. These can be used to renew some of the framework branches and I am often replacing parts of the framework that one would generally consider permanent. This is something that I routinely do when a suitable shoot appears, so there aren't any branches that are sufficiently long lived that the fruiting wood would move too far from the framework, and if one were to cut back parts of the framework that would also encourage new shoots to develop. Over the expected productive lifetime of a peach tree, it isn't a problem :)
Thank you for such a detailed response! Really appreciate it! That makes it crystal clear!
hope the snow tomorrow isnt too bad down your way its due our way thursday
Thanks :) So far only a dusting that was quickly washed away by rain this morning - I would be happy not to see any more!