We moved house a few years ago, with a cherry tree in the east-facing front garden, and two eating apple trees in the west-facing back garden. The cherries were a wonderful surprise in the first year, but the tree has not been particularly bountiful since. Our apple trees produce lovely apples (two varieties) but their branches have been extending and taking up garden space. What should we do to maintain them, and how can we bring the cherry tree back to fruiting? We’re reluctant to touch or prune either before educating ourselves in case we damage them. Laura Beades
There’s always a risk of causing damage to fruit trees if pruned too harshly or at the wrong time of year, so you’re right to be cautious. But let’s start first with your cherry tree, and the possible reasons why it’s not very productive.
Fruiting cherry trees (as opposed to the ornamental varieties) are loosely divided into two types. The first, known as sweet cherry (Prunus avium), produces fruit sweet enough to eat straight from the tree, once ripe. The second, known as acid cherry (Prunus cerasus), produces fruit that needs to be cooked and sweetened before being edible. Judging by your description, yours is a sweet cherry, in which case it’s in a location where it’s not getting enough sunlight and heat to flourish. You mention that it did well in the first year after you moved into your new home, but I suspect this was probably a result of the unusually warm summer heatwaves of a few years ago. Cherry trees growing in east-facing gardens are also more vulnerable to spring frosts damaging their blossom, resulting in no fruit for that year.
Unfortunately, given its age and the probable size of its root-ball, transplanting it is not a realistic option. But you could try growing a second tree in your sunny back garden. Just make sure to choose a self-pollinating variety such as Lapins, grafted on to a semi-dwarfing rootstock such as Gisela 5 to stop it getting too big. By growing it against a sunny wall as a fan-trained tree, you can make the best use of space.
Your apple trees, by comparison, sound very happy. The problem here is how to keep their growth in check. Left unpruned, their eventual size depends a lot on what rootstock was used by the nursery that produced them. Dwarfing (M9, M26) or semi-dwarfing rootstocks (MM106) are most suitable for an average-sized back garden, limiting growth to a manageable size, especially if trained against a wall or fence as cordon or espalier-type tree.
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Pruning is another very important way of restricting size. The exact hows and whys of this depend on the style/shape of tree. From your description, yours sound like a free-standing “bush” or standard apple tree, which should be winter-pruned between November and early March, so you’ll need to wait until later this year. The technique varies a little depending on whether it’s what’s known as a tip-bearing or spur-bearing variety. For a step-by step guide, see rhs.org.uk or get your hands on a copy of Dr Hessayon’s The New Fruit Expert.
