Pruning apple tree

Before pruning

After pruning

January is a good time to prune apple trees, and the one in my garden definitely needed it. When I moved in there were hundreds of very small apples on the ground around the tree, and I hope by giving it a vigorous pruning I will get fewer but larger apples this year.

I found some useful information on pruning on the Royal Horticultural Society's website here, so I had a go. I've probably taken off more than they suggest, but the tree has been neglected for some time and there was a lot of dead wood. There was also a lot of growth which was too high to be able to pick the apples easily, and many branches were too close to each other, rubbing together or tangled together.

Now the structure is much more open, the highest branches have been removed, the lowest ones which were below head-height have also been trimmed back, and there are still plenty of fruit buds on the remaining branches. I left some long branches growing across the garden so that the open area is divided up visually, which should be more appealing to look at.