Everyone loves a spring bloom of a full fruit tree.
It can fill your back yard with a beautiful focal point and the neighborhood with a lovely scent.
If you are looking for an easy to care for tree, well.... You're barking up the wrong tree.
They are most sustainable to disease, and creepy crawling bugs love them. If you don't clean them up in the fall, your lawn is a mess and drunk birds will fly into your windows OR your Mom will be asking "What are you making with your apples? Applesauce? Jam?" I have told her many times that we all have jobs and that one is hers.
There are answers for some of these issues.
- Have an Arborist trim you fruit tree late winter early spring. Ya I mean now.
Like right now.
After a good trim, you want your tree to have time to heal... Having open cuts in disease season is a big no no. You want it to heal before the bugs get out too.
The tree will heal best when it first wakes, that's when it has the most energy to heal and grow.
- Many diseases are contagious. Understand that a happy tree is a healthy one. The healthier it is the better your chances are to stay away from all this nasty stuff I am telling you about.
- Often fruit trees aren't given enough attention - they become too full of crossing branches and suckers - this leads to fungal issues and nesting grounds for unwanted pests.
- Fruit trees get too large for the main structure of the tree to hold up - leading to broken limbs and disfiguring of the tree, also the open wounds from the broken limb leave the tree susceptible to pathogens.
- If you like your tree and dislike the fruit, an aggressive trim done by a professional can decrease or completely take the seeding season away. So you just enjoy your no mess, green leafed fruit tree for the year, with no fruit to clean up. Just keep in mind, there will be no flowers either.
- John and Sheila Gonty