More Tree Trimming

Last January, we hired some professional arborists to see if they could salvage some old (about 75 years) and shaggy apple trees we had on our property. We knew this would be a multi-year project.

These stately trees were wildly overgrown. As a result, they produced scads of little bitty apples. The arborists promised to bring them back into production. In the span of one day, the team did what they could, which was quite dramatic.

The result last summer was larger apples, though still too much fruit on the tree to produce anything bigger. The head arborist warned us the trees would “sucker like crazy” the following summer, and he was right.

The team came back yesterday and did some follow-up work. Their goal was to trim suckers off the two trees they worked on the most last year, as well as to tackle some of the other smaller trees and see what they could do to bring them back to health.

They got right to work.

This team is a family affair, with a husband, wife and several older kids swarming the trees.

Soon we could see lopped-off branches as they pruned and shaped and cut away deadwood.

Definitely a job that requires a head for heights.

But while it was easiest to photograph them as they worked in the trees closest to the driveway, in fact most of their efforts were concentrated on the one tree they didn’t have a chance to do last year. This poor tree was so overgrown and laden with deadwood that the arborists weren’t certain they could pull it back from the brink. By the time they were done, the poor little tree was just a stump of its former self.

By the end, we had another huge pile of branches.

We asked the head arborist when we should have them out again for follow-up work. He suggested about 18 months from now, during high summer, so they could trim away unproductive suckers and gauge how the trees are doing in full production mode.

One thing is certain: We’re grateful for the chance to pull these mature heritage trees back into beautiful production.