How do you prune a young apple tree on M26 rootstock?
Professor Buczacki is a horticultural expert, writer and former chair of Gardeners' Question Time
Stefan says: The family apple tree is one of the most popular ways of growing tree fruit and demand for plants at nurseries and garden centres almost invariably exceeds supply. The family nature of your tree means that two, three or even more varieties have been grafted onto the same rootstock. Use of a modern dwarfing rootstock means the entire tree need never become unmanageable, although the most dwarfing of rootstocks – especially the smallest, M27 – aren’t generally thought vigorous enough to cope with so much going on above. That’s why the semi-dwarfing M26 you have tends to be used.
But you want to know how to prune a plant that is made up of different components, each with its own pruning needs and characteristics. In pruning, as in other aspects of gardening, I try for simplicity and although pruning a family tree could be complicated, I choose not to let it be.
First of all, I don’t do any summer pruning. In fact, I don’t do summer pruning on any freestanding apple trees; only on cordons, espaliers or other formally trained systems. All my pruning is done in winter, and I use what to me is the simplest and most straightforward method. This basically comprises pruning back the leading shoot on each branch to about 7-8cm and the sideshoots on each branch to a couple of buds above their bases.
And that’s all there is to it. I do exactly the same with family trees and I make no concessions to the fact some of the varieties have grown more vigorously than others. To try to prune each variety in a different way makes for hopeless complications and inevitably results in a lopsided tree as each part grows at a different rate. Yes, of course, by the end of the season, a tree with varieties of widely differing growth rates may look a little bit odd, but most nurseries graft family trees with varieties of comparable vigour to minimise this.
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These are easy to grow. If you haven’t much space, some of the newer ones are smaller and thornless.
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Red, white and black currants are all easy to grow and don’t take up a lot of space – perfect for smaller gardens.
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