After Apple Pruning

The banks of snow that trapped us at home for five days have largely gone. Proof positive, if any more was needed, that March is a month which faces two ways.  Last week it was blizzards, snowdrifts and minus 10 C, this week it is daffodils, lambs and plus 10 C. So I took the opportunity to embark on a gardening job that had needed to be put off for a long while, pruning the apple tree.

Each winter I’d prune the apple tree at the top of our driveway. This is when it needs to be done, as the tree is dormant. Because of the surgery on my ribs in September, I had put this job off to January. But then I didn’t embark on it because of the troublesome pain in my hip and groin. With a cold and snowy slice of winter having only just gone, today seemed the last good opportunity to prune the tree this year.

Over the past year the apple tree had grown many long shoots, some about three feet tall, which were mostly growing straight up. The task was to remove all of these with my loppers, cutting the shoots down to just above the buds, where the apples would grow from. The purpose of the pruning being to concentrate growth around the buds. I noticed that these buds were beginning to show purple. The white blossom could not be far off from appearing.

In previous years I’d cut large branches from the centre of the tree, trying to achieve the preferred shape – like a wine glass. This had encouraged the tree to grow laterally; it is now about six feet tall and twenty feet across. In recent years the tree has produced some good crops of apples. The other determining factor was the weather during the blossoming time. If it was mild then there would be plenty of insects, especially bumble-bees rising from their winter hibernation, to pollinate the tree. If the weather was cold then there would be few insects, little pollination and few apples in September.

My smaller loppers are about two feet long. I collected them from the shed and sharpened them with a file. As I did this I realised that I would be working my arms and back for real for the first time since the surgery on my ribs. I began to prune tentatively and found that I was able to use the loppers without pain in my left side. But my upper arms soon became tired. I paused for a short rest after twenty minutes. Then I got the small steps and began to lop the higher shoots. I steadily worked my way around the tree. At the end of an hour of lopping I stopped. I’d pruned most of the tree. My arms and back ached and I could do no more. I was certainly out of practice, but I was happy that I’d been able to undertake this tough gardening job without any problems from my ribs. I returned indoors, T made me a lovely Sunday brunch and I sat in the armchair afterwards feeling pleased with myself.