Hallo, this is my first post and although used to forums of another kind was pleasantly surprised to find this one, so Hi and well done for setting this forum up.

My concerns are with a 20 yrs old crab apple tree we have. Not sure if it's an edible version or not, but we have had an infestation of the woolly aphid this year which is worse than before. In fact it has taken over a rather large branch and sub-branches (scuse the lack of gardeners techi language here!) and all the leaves have fallen off.

The main part of the tree they have not got to yet, but this rather forlorn lower branch is practically bare now whilst the remainder is still quite green.

They are getting into the main trunk and I can see further up the tree they aare beginning to find homes, but my concern is with the health of this dying looking branch and whether it will revive if treated or whether I have to remove it completely.

Problem is this tree is now becoming quite tall and to either go scrubbing the aphin infestation as I have seen mentioned elsewhere on the net or even spraying that high is going to be extremely awkward to say the least.

Can anyone tell me in somewhat layman's terms quite how I might deal with this please and will I need to cut this rather large (relative to the tree) branch off?

Many thanks

A1