Daydream thread continues.....

RAS

lir

Pear trees? Trained? Any chance of a piccie or two?Just doing my espalier apples at the mo and I think rhiwfield has cordons?
mennie - my "orchard" is about one foot wide, 6 metres long and and 2 metres high. contains two espaliers and two cordon apples. I have also grafted bits of two other varieties onto the esapliers so will get 6 different varieties.
If I it did it again, I would plant cordon apples and pears at 50cm centres. even allowing for 45 degree angle, that would provide enough fruit to last from September to April, maybe a bit earlier with a careful choice of pears.

lostinrates

I have more from front on but photobucket is dithering, will add them later. Thank you very much RAS. ( btw, i mean jt, no hobbits ...did not know you read there too)

I know i hve cheated by not cutting at the first height this year, but the screening aspect is important here too you see.

lostinrates

rhiwfield

Lir, I'm not sure that there is just the one way to train espaliers. I think that given a year or two the lower branches should get enough growth to start to make their way along the training wires. I've done it mainly by encouraging lateral growth so you get a pyramid shape that gradually extends along the training wires. If you find that your lower laterals are not growing, maybe you'll need to be ruthless with the upper growth to encourage lateral growth.

I'm encouraged by the growth in my last 4 trees, which had an inverted pyramid shape to start with but which are now growing along the lower training wires as well

RAS, no cordons here, just espaliers

lostinrates

Rhiwfield, woulf you cut the longer ones to be same length or just leave them for now?

I don't want to hurt my beautiful trees by doing the wring thing or nothing. A big deal is made of summer prune on trained trees but.....there seems virtually nothing to do

rhiwfield

Lir, no, I wouldnt cut the longer laterals until they extend to the length of wire you've allocated to them.

All I do in summer is to cut back the shoots growing up from the laterals. I'll try to post a picture of my two pears tomorrow for comparison (after a quick prune that is )

rhiwfield

Lir, here's a few before and after photos of my front garden apples and pears.
1 Lateral in need of tieing in
2 Tieing in, I use biodegradeable string to allow for branch expansion. No real harm if I accidentally snip off growing point, another bud will branch out, it just looks a bit messy. Sometimes that happens thru insect attack anyhow.
3 Pear before pruning, no fruit set at all this year.
4 Pear after pruning
5 Apple 1 before pruning. The lower branches were 18" long when planted, the upper about 4' long. You can see that after 3 years the lower branches are now about 5' long. Fruit set ok, was one of the last to blossom.
6 Apple 1 after pruning, you can see the new lower growth isnt yet fruit bearing
7 Apple 2 pre pruning
8 Apple 2 after pruning

Note to self, weed under fruit trees!!

RAS

Cracking lesson in formative pruning rhiwie.

lir I would not be doing much with that espalier now - as far as I can see you have no sideshoots/laterals that need cutting back towards the main branches.

I would have taken the whole of the top tier off last spring to force those two little sprouts to form good branches this year but that is time gone past.

I differ from rhiwie in that I would prune in next late winter/spring.

It may be counter intutiative, but I would gently take the tip (literally) off the left hand side top branch and cut the two right hand side branches back to one third of the length. That should reduce the growth on the top left branch next year and force the other two to make loads of new growth. Can't see how long the lowest left branch is but use the same principle.

That way you will end up with a much more balanced tree by next summer.

choille

Hi all,

can't read all past posts to catch up I'm afraid but welcome newbies & hope everyone is well.

I've been busy with stuff & a bit under the weather after mega doses of anti-biotics after a dodgy tick bite & blood poisoning. But hopefully I'll be up & running again soon.

I have pink cauliflowers - what do you think of that then? Our weather has been excellent but very wet lately - which was actually needed.

Dave - your poppies have been lovely & I've kept their seed heads. Are they the same as ladybird poppies which I bought locally - the look similar?

Have a another wee hatching of chicks - had a visit from the pine martens which was pretty awful - may have mentioned that previously - apart from that everything ticks along slowly - as ever.

RAS

Good to hear from you choille - was getting worried with you not posting.

Sad about the chicks.

And hope that you are getting better and better. Will have to run.