Hey everyone! I have a Galarina apple tree that is being very stubborn. I planted it late 2022 (while it was dormant), and it’s grown about 18” this year. However, when I try to train its branches more horizontally, the branches immediately go straight up once they’re outside my training spreaders.
This tree also grew three inches during an unusually warm February, got hit by a freeze in March, shrugged it off like it was nothing, and still has all its leaves now and is still growing despite a night of freezing weather a few weeks ago, which made nearly all the local trees go dormant.
Is all of this normal for the Galarina apple? I was going to try training it to a modified central leader shape, but the central leader wouldn’t grow, and all the other branches grew instead. This thing almost looks like a pear tree in its shape. I’m going to post the pictures I took today. Sorry they aren’t very good; it was starting to sprinkle, and my dog kept bumping my hands.
Some apple varieties just like to grow very upright. Other varieties practically have to be forced to grow upright via staking and everything in between. As a general rule, you’ll have your easiest long term maintenance if you work with the natural tendencies of a tree rather than against it. For a very rigidly upright variety I would personally train it to a central leader which should use up some of that vertical energy and make it more willing to let side branches reach more widely outward.
The trouble is the topmost branches are growing the slowest. I
The ones that you see growing the highest are 2-3 branches below what I was trying to use as central leader. This spring, I kept trying to force the branches outward to help the central leader grow, but it just didn’t prove vigorous, and the others grew too fast while I was dealing with sickness. None of the branches will grow sideways, and all new growth goes straight up. I trimmed a long, upward growing branch this past spring to make it grow sideways, and the new bud just went up. How to I train this tree to stop growing all its laterals upward?
I’m afraid I’ll have to force the laterals down every year. I did it last year, and this year all new growth was up. It wasn’t easy retraining them last time, either—it took a good six months before they stayed where I wanted them!
You probably will have to, however pruning back to reduce length and get your scaffolding strong would be a potential goal. There are some guides to pruning on the forum that would probably be helpful to you.
You don’t have to use the original central leader. By the sounds of it, the original isn’t getting enough sap flow. You can allow a different branch with better growth take over as the new central leader and then remove the poor performing original.
To speak on the galarina growing through cold weather, my galarina never went dormant last year. This sprout kept going through weather that got down to around 10F. My yard tends to stay a bit warmer, but not 20 degrees warmer.
My tree sends a lot of upward sprouts, but it is on g.890. The scaffolds mostly come out at like 90 degrees with no training. The topmost scaffolds do tend to grow upward though
Thank you, everyone! I was feeling like I’d done something wrong, but now I know what to do! I have one more question: there are two branches near the top that could potentially become central leaders, but the one nearest the top is a little shorter than the next one down. Should I use the longest branch and cut down to it, cutting off the topmost vigorous branch, or should I use the topmost vigorous branch as central leader and train the longest one down as a scaffold?
At this point because your tree has so much vertical energy, I’d keep the more vigorous of the two potential new leaders. A strong leader will produce hormones which help reduce vertical dominance of lower branches.
my redlove odysso is like that. has very narrow crotch angles and extremely upright growth. its been a beast to try and train. i finally just let it size up and cut back the lower branches to let the central leader be dominant.
