Many years ago, my all time favourite gardener, Geoff Hamilton, showed us how to festoon train fruit trees. I did it with one of my pears and it has worked well. A few years ago, we decided to buy a Bramley apple tree, it has been a monster ever since. We got it on completely the wrong root stock for our sized garden and every couple of years, we give it a short back and sides.
For the past two years however, we have had little to no fruit, due to no blossom. I finally found out that it is a tip bearing fruit tree and my constant pruning was cutting off its fruiting buds. Ah well, we live and learn.
In spring this year I began to pull down new branches and weigh them down. Sometimes I used bottles with water
Here it is almost ready to go through the winter. We currently have 12 branches weighed down. I'm sure I can't tie many more down as they are now too stiff. I think the best thing to do is prune off all the remaining branches and tie some more down next Spring.
Hi Dc...we have just bought a house in the country 4 weeks ago...hubs is a horticulturist....and I can't tear him away from our espaliered orchard,which he says has not been pruned properly and he has already added a cherry and apricot and constructing a hen shed...phew.....he's in heaven!!
ReplyDeleteGuess you won't be seeing much of him for a while then:o)
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