Wednesday, February 06, 2019

Apple of my eye

These are apple trees. They belong to a neighbor who lives in the Paris region and spends time in the summer here. This winter, she had someone in to prune the trees. Boy, did he ever. It will be interesting to see what grows back this spring. I'm almost certain there won't be apples on these trees this year. That's a shame, because some of them are pretty good.

There are three houses and two outbuildings in this photo. Our house is not visible, but the tall fir tree on the left is in our yard.

We had two of our apple trees pruned a few years ago, but certainly not to the extent seen here. The trees leafed out well the following spring, but there were no apples that year. In the second year there were apples, but not as many as we had before the pruning.

6 comments:

  1. I’m all for drastic pruning but always research the effects before I do so. Hope the apple trees are happy with it.

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  2. I gasped when I saw the trees! Don't think those pruners knew what they were doing!

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  3. That's a bludgeoning, not a pruning.

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  4. mitch, I agree. I have some shrubs to do this year, after they flower.

    judy, thanks!

    sillygirl, the French are all about controlling gardens. They love to "top" and coppice trees to keep them under control.

    chris, "pruning" doesn't seem to be the right word, does it!

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  5. That's more what I was brought up to call "pollarding". I believe it's supposed to be good for combatting pests and parasites by increasing airflow (to put it mildly) around the branches, and to encourage the tree to strengthen and extend its root system. I suppose the experts know how to do it without killing the tree from shock, but one does wonder sometimes; and you couldn't blame the tree for going into a sulk and refusing to fruit.

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