That’s a great tip, thanks! It will be difficult, thought. Could I leave only one fruit to satisfy my curiosity? lol 
I’ve been guilty of doing that, and I have several under-sized B.9 trees to prove it.
3 Likes
What would you expect with PC on G41 compared to B9?
I have few apples on B9 and one on G 41. In my limited experience, B9 lacks vigor and they don’t branch out well. G41 is more vigorous and has a better branch structure. Both need staking.
I will choose G 41 over B9 every single time.
Thanks.
Don’t sweat rootstock size. Go with a rootstock that performs well in your area and soil type. Anything can be pruned to the size you want. If you’re in CA, talk to Dave Wilson folks. I’d recommend the following:
Use your current tree to teach yourself how trees react to pruning. I promise you won’t cut too much off: I can almost promise you won’t cut enough off. I know I was hesitant at first! Trees want to grow. They will do do no matter what you throw at them.
Graft multiple varieties on your current tree. Learn what does well and what you like.
When you do plant a new tree, give it a significant heading cut to keep it small. Like other folks said, prune at height of summer. Maybe twice.
Consider restricted forms. Our urban yard is about 1000 sq ft. We grow significant veg crops here. Our property is dotted with 8 oblique cordons and 4 espaliers and a collection of berries and vines. It’s grown informally over the years as I’ve gained confidence. We don’t have an 8-10hr ideal sun situation, but our little trees and bushes produce a good little crop over a long season for us here in Western NY. I’m happy with 15-20 Cox Orange Pippins or Bartletts or Sweet 16s. My little Egremont bush gets quite a bit of shade under a hydrangea but it still produces a dozen beautiful apples and I can always graft it to another tree. I let the Goldrush espalier get bigger in a sunnier spot because they store so well in the fridge. I planted some of these trees on Geneva rootstocks, but others on 111 and 118. You wouldn’t know which is which in my yard. Folks have been training trees long before these rootstocks were invented.
“Difficult to train” trees just require a different pruning/training approach. My Mount Royal plum wants to go crazy every spring, but I tie down what works and prune off what doesn’t. It’s a bit of an unorthodox fan shape, but it plays nice behind narcissus and garlic and leeks and bee balm.
Hope my ramblings help, and good luck!
2 Likes
I’ll add my two bits on Pixie Crunch to this thread … it is very slow to bear. My graft is ten years old and it is only now starting to fruit. In its defense I accidentally let the topworked variety grow out and it was a triploid so out-competed the PC, but I removed that almost five years ago. Maybe it doesn’t like being grafted to a triploid…
Re: rootstock my personal view is to favor more vigorous stocks. I have replaced many apples that didn’t last very long on the dwarfing apple rootstocks… I didn’t think about that when I planted things 20 years ago but its a pain to replace trees. It is more challenging to train vigorous trees to fit into a small space, but in the process you will learn a great deal more about how to prune correctly.
3 Likes
Interesting…
I’m glad to see that my 6-year-old thread is still alive and active. Here’s an update on everything . . .
My Pink Lady is now a pretty good size. It had no pollinator for most of that time, largely because I was busy with other projects. It did put out a few apples here and there, but not a ton.
This past year, I planted 3 more apple trees, all of them in a newly designed landscape in the front yard. The closest of these apple trees is probably 30 feet away from the Pink Lady. That tree is supposed to be the Pixie Crunch that I wanted and appears to be what I’d asked the landscaper for.
That said, the other two, a King David and a Gold Rush were held up because this landscaper was a total FLAKE! He’d take money to go buy trees and disappear for a long period of time, only to show up and work some more. A number of the plants I’d received were not what I asked for. I believe the King David is correct, but I KNOW that the Gold Rush is not. He first put in a Gordon (the tag was half ripped off but I used the tag code to confirm it) and I asked him to replace it with what I’d paid for (I was buying larger trees). A new tree showed up, but the apples it produced are RED and taste like a Red Delicious. It will be coming out and I’ll replace it with something else - a Gold Rush if I can find it, or maybe another King David. or??? I’m open to suggestions. It sits closest to the King David, so it needs to be in that pollination group. Unless I espalier another apple in the back, I really don’t have any more room back there without giving up precious veggie garden space.
With the presence of the Pixie Crunch and more maturity on my Pink Lady, I got a decent-sized crop out of it last year. Well, I should say that the tree produced a good amount of apples, but the neighborhood Possum ate far more than I got. If anyone has ideas for critter control, I’m looking for solutions for this year. It looks to be developing a good crop this year after a good pruning this winter. I hope I get to enjoy some of them!
Thanks again for all of the helpful suggestions. Every time I come into this group, I learn something new!
3 Likes
I don’t live too far from you, my Pink Lady is finally bearing fruit after almost 8 years. I also have Fuji and maybe a few Gala. I espalier my apple trees because I don’t have room, I get to eat a few Golden Dorsett every year, but mostly they are grown for the critters. Maybe I will add Pixie Crunch. I’m thinking of removing my Honey Crips, I bought 2 a while back when they were cheap, $17 a bare root, now I’m not sure I have the energy to remove them.
1 Like
We love our Pixie Crunch and it produces a decent amount of fruit for us every year. My wife likes it because of the smaller fruit which make for a very handy smaller sized snack. It’s on M111 and has grown pretty well for us. I recently grafted Lady Williams onto it and these have done well.
For comparison, my Gala, also on M111 and just about 20’ away from the PC, has not done much. It rarely puts out more than 1 or two fruit a year and has not grown well. I may take some scions from it this winter, graft it onto the PC and if they take, remove the Gala mother tree.
2 Likes
How long have your Honey Crisps been in the ground? I hear that they also take forever to put out fruit.
Are you protecting your other apples from the critters? If so, what has worked for you?
1 Like
How long did it take for your Pixie Crunch to put out a decent amount of fruit?
I have yet to get a single fruit from my Honey Crisp trees, but they have not been in the ground long enough, maybe 3 years. I use my apples as bait. I don’t keep the critters out, mostly squirrels and rats, when I see my apples with bite marks is when I tell my husband to put out traps. I may have eaten 5 large apples so far from my 2 Golden Dorsett trees. I got them cheap years ago at 50% discount from Home Depot, it’s like $8 a bare root.
I only like Envy as eating apple, my husband eats a lot more apples than I do, but they are store bought.
1 Like
It took about 3 years for it to produce more than a couple of apples. I have very few chill hours and probably had less than 50 hours last year. The PC did ok with this, but the Gala doesn’t like it too much. I had a Honeycrisp for about 5 years and it flowered once and barely grew at all. Some years it wouldn’t wake up until June! There were probably a few things I could have done to artificially increase the number of chill hours (wetting down the branches at night was one idea), but it wasn’t worth it.
So last year the HC was pulled and the Gala is on the chopping block for next spring.
1 Like
It may be a few more years on those HC apples, unfortunately. It’s one of the reasons I opted not to attempt to grow them.
The rats are usually busy eating my tomatoes and leave my apples alone. Squirrels during the day and possums at night are my apple thieves. I don’t have a ton of apples on my Pink Lady, maybe 50 this year, and they still have a while to go before they’re ready. Unfortunately, the possums usually eat them long before they are ripe, just as they do with my passionfruit.
1 Like
This is now my 2nd season with PC and I’d say that it has about 6 apples. Unfortunately, something is boring in the PCs and I need to figure out what it is. So far, the King David apples (about 30 of them) are completely bug-free.
I may try that wet branch idea. My Santa Rosa plum (2nd year) isn’t doing much at all. It flowered and had one plum that dropped. It was a replacement SR for one that I took out, also didn’t produce much in the 7 or 8 years that I had it there. I completely redid that landscaping, took the old one out, and thought I’d try again. In the meantime, my neighbor’s nearby Satsuma is extremely prolific.
I have 3x1 with Santa Rosa, Satsuma, and Shiro, they are in the 6-7th year and are doing well.
1 Like