Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Chatting => Chatting on the Plot => Topic started by: Growster... on October 30, 2017, 18:45
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No, not a video nasty, just an old apple tree...!
Many years ago, we noticed that a plant in the garden just wouldn't go away, we cut it back, forgot it, let it grow then pruned it, then forgot to do anything to it for a couple of years!
It turned out to be a self-seeded apple tree, and we let it blossom, and produce fruit, which was pretty bland, and not like the Lord Lambournes we have close by. We christened her Margaret after the gorgeous sexy Major Houlihan in 'Mash'!
She got to a sizeable shape, but the apples were just tasteless, dry and uninteresting, and while I'd have loved to have owned a 'Growster Nonsuch', it wasn't to be...
We planted a William pear tree close by and Margaret had to go (although she is still sending up shoots to remind us that she's still lurking and I can't dig the root out)!
Margaret was left behind the greenhouse last year, and I've just sawed her arms off for the fire, and maybe we're just hearing the whimper of a small voice asking me - er - why...:0(
gulp...
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Know what? We have an apple tree that deserves a similar fate. It's claimed to be a Golden Delicious, is the last one to have ripe fruit which it produces like there's no tomorrow. Problems are two-fold. The apples are pretty bland and in any event don't store well. They usually go to our ponies and our neighbour's three pigs
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I hate cutting down trees. It does make you feel guilty especially when it is an old friend. She can't help being bland.
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The pear tree went a couple of years ago in a good winter heat for a few weeks. The neighbour had grown it from seed. Reduced the height of the apple trees also had grown from seed from the said neighbour
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I don't really like burning trees from here. Margaret was in a difficult place, and as she was feral, she kept arguing with the other trees and shrubs...
The other two apple trees, Mildred and George have also had a serious pruning this Autumn, as they had begun to be a bit cantakerous, argumentative and really socially unattractive, and they'd also begun to upset two favourite trees close by! One, a Pagoda Bush was distinctly annoyed...
Margaret's stump is still producing smalll shoots, so she can call out when she wants to!
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The shoots are probably coming from the rootstock at the point where the actual variety was grafted. A bit of brushwood killer painted on the cut branches (perhaps best if you punch some holes down into them first) and covered over with some plastic tied around the base should do the trick.