Category Archives: Gardening Tips

Chestnuts Come Early… Unfortunately

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You maybe aware that our conker trees (Aesculus hippocastanum and its varieties) are under threat. The horse chestnut leaf miner grub eats the tissue between the outer layers of the leaves, reducing their ability to breathe and ultimately causing them to fall off. At the same time Horse Chestnut Leaf Blotch – a fungal condition is having exactly the same effect.  If your chestnut is shedding its leaves now, you know why.

In turn, this causes the conkers to fall early, which ought to be good news for conkerers except that they will be a bit smaller this year…. because the trees have not been able to take  full advantage of that lovely sunny summer you have all being enjoying.

The activities of the leaf miner and the leaf blotch weaken the tree and make it more susceptible to bleeding canker (which may well kill it). One in ten of the UK’s horse chestnut trees have bleeding canker and there is no treatment available.  It is of greatest danger to  young  chestnut trees -  up to about 35 years old.  Beyond that age, the tree is more likely to survive, and there are recorded instances of older trees actually curing themselves.A healthy, forty year old Horse Chestnut

The horse chestnut leaf miner seems to be pretty unstoppable as well – the adult moth which is 5mm long has no natural predators. It was first seen in South-Eastern Europe in the 1970′s and reached the UK in 2002. Since then it has spread from London (where it was first identified) into the Midlands, to Kent and down to Devon.

Our (albeit pessimistic view) is that until either the miner has been stopped or there is a treatment for the canker, it is probably best to avoid planting horse chestnuts in clumps.  Keep them away from one another. The one photographed is in a village where every horse chestnut is in some way diseased (except this one). It is just over 100 metres  from the nearest infected tree.. .

Cut the Cordon now!

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This is just about pruning cordons – there is a much longer piece on growing cordon fruit trees if you would like to know more.

Cordons should be pruned every year around mid August (i.e. about now). Your cordon is ready for pruning when the new side shoots from the main stem(s) become woody at their base. Shorten all of this new growth from the main stem to 3 or 4 leaves above the basal cluster of leaves at the base of the shoot – see the diagram below.
Where a shoot from the main stem has a side shoot coming of it, prune this also – to one leaf above the cluster of leaves its base.

Summer Pruning Cordon Fruit Trees

Pruning Cordons

Pruning of fruit trees is generally carried out in winter or early spring. Cordons are different in that you restrict their growth by pruning now and the ideal cordon is compact and covered in fruiting spurs (which this treatment encourages).

You can use this technique on any shape of fruit tree if you wish to restrict its size but at the same time ensure it produces lots of fruit.  The trick is to use a M9 semi-dwarfing or MM106 semi-vigorous rootstock

We hope your plants have grown well this summer (certainly not much need to water!)

Watch your plants grow, and enjoy!

Apple Tree Pollination Groups

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This is a list of Apple Flowering Groups for the UK.  You can use it as a reference for the purposes of ensuring you have the correct pollinator(s) available for your Apple trees

Early Flowering Group

These trees will pollinate one another and any tree in the Mid Season Flowering Group (see) below:

Beauty of Bath, Discovery, Egremont Russet

Mid Season Flowering Group

These trees will pollinate one another and any tree in either the Early or Late Season Flowering Groups:

Arthur Turner, Charles Ross, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Cox’s Self-Fertile, Grenadier, James Grieve, Lord Lambourne, Revd W. Wilkes, Sunset, Winter Gem, Worcester Permain.

Triploids in this group (that need pollination but cannot pollinate other trees) are:

Blenheim Orange, Bramley’s Seedling

Late Season Flowering Group

These trees will pollinate one another and any tree in the Mid Season Flowering Group:

Ellisons Orange, Falstaff, Howgate Wonder, Laxton’s Superb, Spartan

Triploids in this group (that need pollination but cannot pollinate other trees) are:

Crispin, Jupiter

 
Creative Commons License
Apple Tree Pollination Groups by Ruth Eyre is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Based on a work at Ashridge Trees – Apple Tree Pollination Guide.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://http://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/blog/blog-copyright/.

 

Watch your plants grow, and enjoy!

Remedying a Tree that is Falling Over

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It crossed my mind this morning that we are in August. September is the other month of the equinox (exactly half a year away from Shakespeare’s “Beware the Ides of March”). March and September are the months where the Earth tilts just more than halfway to or from the Sun. So September and March are the months where gales are most likely and trees are most at risk of being blown over.

I hope this does not happen to you, but if it does, here is how you can save a leaning tree (…and you might want to take preventative action on trees that are leaning now). By the way, if the tree falls over, cut it up for firewood – it cannot be saved. These instructions only apply to trees that are LEANING


1. You need to stabilize the tree (stop it from leaning more). The best way to do this is by propping it up. Anything long enough and strong enough will do.  Your local friendly engineering workshop will make you up a Y shaped prop, or you can use a stout bit of timber (cut down floor or roof joist from a skip, 3″x3″ fence post, something like that). An Acrow prop would be the best if you can get one – incredibly strong and capable of being made longer or shorter while in position.

Ideally you want to give the prop a foundation, so it does not drive into the soil under the weight of the tree. Obviously a concrete footing is best, but a paving slab will do the job, even a large rock. The prop needs to be as close to right angles to the trunk of the tree as possible and held really tightly by the foundation. Concrete does this all by itself.  For anything else jam the prop in by hitting its base towards the bottom of the tree so it slides across and then gets stuck on the foundation.

2. Ideally in winter (but if the tree is leaning badly do it now) completely cut out one of the large branches that is causing the tree to lean. This reduces the weight that is causing the tree to lean. You can do another the year after and so on. This winter or next spring, prune the side AWAY from where the tree is leaning and prune it [B]hard[/B].

Sounds mad, but it will cause new growth on the “good” side which will help stop it falling over.

3. As a minimum, the tree should stabilise and more root will form away from the direction it is leaning which will anchor it. If it is relatively small, you can gradually force it upright as the tree reshapes. Keep on pushing it up and in a few years it will be vertical.

But let’s hope the winds don’t blow.

Watch your plants grow, and Enjoy!