Fruit tree maintenance

There are loads of jobs that need doing as winter turns to spring, one of those is maintaining your fruit trees. These are some young trees (3-4 years old) that require a bit of attention if they’re to thrive, at the minute they’re struggling. One of the biggest threats to fruit trees as they establish themselves is grass, they have a lot of their roots near the surface which puts them in competition with the grass and can knock them right back. As you can see in this example the grass is taking over and if you strim it then you risk damaging the trunk. The best thing to do is to clear an area around the tree by carefully removing the grass, then to keep it away we like to lay some cardboard down and cover with a mulch - this will also feed the tree over time. For a feed in the short term a sprinkling of blood and bonemeal around the tree in early spring followed by some well rotted manure or compost in April will work wonders, just be sure to keep the area around the trunk clear.

These also had a few other issues that needed addressing. There are hares and rabbit in the area and there was evidence of bark nibbling on those trees without guards, sadly a couple were too far gone but the rest had new guards installed. It’s a windy site and the stakes had had their day, some were also badly positioned and rubbing the bark on the trees, where bark is rubbed away it can lead to disease entering the tree. So new stakes and ties were fitted. None of these trees needed a shaping prune yet but there were a couple with shoots coming from below the graft. This can happen on younger trees and these shoots need to be removed as they are from the rootstock below the graft (the rootstock will be from a different variety) and can take over.

Some basic maintenance such as this can be undertaken by anyone and the trees will really benefit from it. Pruning is a little more complicated but isn’t the mystery that people often think it is, though feel free to get in touch if you’d like some advice.