"Victoria Clare" wrote an excellent reply to
"Glen Able" who wrote
My new garden has 4 apple trees which I've finally gotten round to
looking at. (I'm assuming they're all apples, when we looked round
the house in Feb, one of them still had lots of fruits tenaciously
clinging on!)

I guess I should snip off all the little weedy shoots that're coming
out all over the shop, and clear the thick weeds/grass round the base,
right? One's also covered in ivy, is that a bad idea?

This is the wrong time of year for pruning apples. If there were fruits
on them last year, you may well get some this year too - even if they do
need pruning, fruiting can still be pretty good! (believe me - my apple
trees were pretty neglected too!)

I'd pretty much leave them as they are for this year. Clear away any
suckers coming from the base, maybe give them a mulch and clear the base
of the trunks. Take the ivy off if it looks like it's going to
overwhelm the tree, (or if you don't like it), and chop off anything
that's clearly dead or diseased.

Chop back anything else that might be shading them - apples don't like
to be fighting for light, and just cutting back a shading hedge a bit
can make a big difference.

Then this winter you can take out the crossing branches, branches that
go straight up, and branches that are just in the way to create a more
open structure.


If they are that bad, neglected and unpruned for years , overgrown, then
next winter I would go back to the basic scaffold branches and start again.
A total renovation.
Look for the few main side branches coming off the main trunk and prune
everything else out to one or two buds off those. Any large branches that go
upwards and are beyond your ability to pick fruit should also be pruned out.
The summer afterwards will see the tree putting on a lot of new growth and
this should be summer pruned as it grows to keep it shortish, this will
encourage the production of fruiting buds/spurs for the following season.

--
Regards
Bob

Some photos of my plants at.....