How to grow apple trees in the home garden

Apple trees are highly productive fruit bearing trees, suitable for the home garden.   They are small trees generally not exceeding 5m in height, the normal size around 4m.  Apples are deciduous trees suited best to cool climates, however they can be grown in temperate regions where duration of cold allows for the plant to become deciduous (loses leaves).    Two apple trees are required to cross pollinate flowers so fruit to develop.  Commonly a Granny Smith apple is used as a cross-pollinator however most varieties with do if they flower at the same time.   In most areas where apples grow there will be other apples flowering so you may be able to get away with using one tree in the garden.    Multi-grafts is a popular way to get a number of different fruit and also to ensure pollination of flowers.   Multi-grafts are trees which have more then one variety grafted on a single tree.   Trees are usually purchased from nurseries in winter when the trees go dormint. 

How to prepare the ground for planting apple trees

Apples prefer a well drained, rich soil.   However they will also grow well in heavy soils.  With clay soils you may like to dig through some Gypsum to help break up the clay.   The addition of organic matter or animal manures like cow, sheep or to a lesser extent chicken manure will help improve the soil and provide slow release fertilisers.   The addition of blood and bone will also help develop strong branches and fruit bearing stems,  it is a good slow release fertiliser. 

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How to plant an apple tree in the home garden

When you purchase your tree from your local nursery it will be either in a pot or bare-rooted.   If you are purchasing a bare-rooted trees make sure that the root system has been carefully pruned.  Ragged cuts will not help develop a good root system so give a light prune to the roots if this is the case.   If your apple is bagged or in a pot, you can plant it directly into the ground at any time of the year.   Deciduous trees in winter are also planted soon after you purchase them this will give them a good start in spring.   Either bagged or bare-rooted it is very important to stake your trees, around tree stakes are normally used with the tree tied in the centre.   Even a single stake is better then not staking your trees.    Unstaked trees move in the wind and the root system can become weak as a result.   Back fill around your tree and water in well.  placing some straw around your tree will help prevent weeds and also a good mulch like straw with help conserve water.

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How to prune an apple tree in the home garden

Pruning of apple trees is very important.  Not only from the view of producing lots of fruit by also to help the tree support itself and the fruit on the ends of the branches.  So developing strong branches is imporant.  Generally speaking your apple tree that you buy from your local nursery will already have a good starting point,  this is a vase shape.   You can maintain this shape for many years without pruning.  However if your tree becomes misshapen or has a lot of vigourous growth you will need to prune.   An important note to remember is that apple trees produce their fruit on spurs near the end of the branches when this wood is two seasons old.   This means if you prune one year the following year your will not get any fruit till the year after that.   So prune with this in mind and get a good shape to start with.   The vase shape is most common, with wood being removed from the centre of the tree so that sun light gets in and the tree is easy to pick fruit from.   So when you cut your tree back cut it well, in the hope of producing lots of branches around edges, the more branches your tree has the more likely it will produce fruit.   Espalier is a another common way to growing apple trees, but requires more skill to undertake.

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