Hello. Only finding your channel now. It's great well done. I'm putting a peach tree in a large polytunnel. I have a feathered maiden about 150cm. I want to fan it as in another of your videos. So cutting about 30cm above graft. I'm terrified of making this first cut as the last time I tried it the sap just pumped out. No glue would stop it and the tree died. It's the 11th of April now. I think I made this hard cut in winter last time. Can I do it now? Or wait till summer. I'm in same zone as you. Thanks.
It is best not to prune any of the stone fruits in winter as they are prone to infection and healing takes a long time when the tree is dormant; instead, I recommend pruning after bud break through to late summer. I assume that it is now growing - there should be lots of new shoots at this time of year - in which case it should be fine to make that cut now. If for some reason the shoots have not yet appeared, I would wait until they have. I have never had a tree bleed so much that it died so that was very bad luck - hopefully the last time that happens :) I guess from your question that none of the feathers is suitable for the start of the arms? It doesn't matter if not - heading the steam is often necessary when starting out.
Thanks very much for the reply. That's great I have the confidence to make that cut now. Yes buds have just burst. The feathers were all pruned back to about 15cm. As in all of them. By supplier. Maybe to save space. The bottom two 20cm above the graft will work to start from. Your videos are great. Very detailed and explained very clearly. Thanks.
Thanks :) I do hate it when they do that, although it is quite common... I don't know if it's for transport or maybe they take them for their next batch of grafts... but it's plain vandalism as far as I'm concerned. But no matter, if they are well placed they can be used as they are; it won't matter in the long run. One thing to check is the angle between the main stem and the chosen feathers: narrow angles are weak and prone to bark inclusions - if they are narrow you might then be better developing new ones.
Ok I'll keep that in mind for the angle, thanks. Yes it is very common. I am new to stone fruit but have a dozen or so Apple and pear. I really struggled to find two suitable pears in same group to start my Espaliers Out of 100s of trees.
Hi Jonny, I have a question regarding identifying plums. I recently ordered a Kirkes blue and a jubilee plum tree from an online nursery. Jubilee one had a printed label which was assuring but Kirkes blue plant had a hand written label and it also had a remnant of another label which seems to have been cut off. I suspect it might be another kind which was labelled as Kirkes blue and sold to me. I can't really tell until the fruits come out in a year or two. Do you have any suggestions on how to identify if it really is Kirkes blue?
Identifying any fruit tree can be challenging - there are so many varieties, though thankfully less so for plums than apples and pears! You're right that there is little you can do until it fruits, though you may observe modest vigour and a spreading habit consistent with the variety. You can compare the fruit characteristics with known examples of Kirke's Blue such as from the national fruit collection: www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/full2.php?id=8186&&fruit=plum. As well as fruit size, shape, and colour, check other details such as the flowering times (which need to be adjusting for locale and weather conditions), harvest time, stalk length, and look for a freestone. You can also compare with descriptions from various of the old fruit manuals (Taylor, for example). Hope it turns out to be the right one!
Can plums be trained as a horizontal cordon? I’ve just planted 2 Asian pears and 2 plums right next to my fence and your video has inspired me to try my hand at espaliering them 😅
I’m not quite sure what it is you want to do; cordons are usually either vertical or then laid down to as much as 45 degrees. You can train a plum as a cordon - some sources say not, but it can be done. It is probably not the most productive form though. The Asian pear should grow well as a cordon, espalier with multiple horizontal tiers, or a fan; the plums would probably be best as a fan, but a cordon if you don’t have the space.
That is rather tight - ideally you would want the space to be about twice as wide as it is high, so perhaps closer to 10 or 12 feet apart. You can undoubtedly train something to fill whatever space you have, though - there is always a way to do it - it just might not be quite conventional. The usual way to start a fan is with a short central trunk and two side branches forming a Y shape, with each branch positioned at around 45 degrees. The angle would not work well if your space is narrow. In which case I think I would consider having a longer trunk (a bit more than half the available height), with two or three branches coming off to each side to spread the growth vertically. Treat each side branch as you would for a conventional fan. That should give you a good array of branches for the space you have. I hope they are on dwarfing rootstocks, as they may otherwise be rather vigorous for that size. I would also be cautious with feeding as you don't want to encourage too much vegetative growth.
Only when working on it - otherwise it seems perfectly fine. If necessary I could add a few more fixings but I haven't noticed any noise at other times.
Fantastic video, presentation, thanks for sharing your knowledge
Thanks 😀
Your videos are wonderful, thank you!
Thank you very much :)
Hello. Only finding your channel now. It's great well done. I'm putting a peach tree in a large polytunnel. I have a feathered maiden about 150cm. I want to fan it as in another of your videos. So cutting about 30cm above graft. I'm terrified of making this first cut as the last time I tried it the sap just pumped out. No glue would stop it and the tree died. It's the 11th of April now. I think I made this hard cut in winter last time. Can I do it now? Or wait till summer. I'm in same zone as you. Thanks.
It is best not to prune any of the stone fruits in winter as they are prone to infection and healing takes a long time when the tree is dormant; instead, I recommend pruning after bud break through to late summer. I assume that it is now growing - there should be lots of new shoots at this time of year - in which case it should be fine to make that cut now. If for some reason the shoots have not yet appeared, I would wait until they have. I have never had a tree bleed so much that it died so that was very bad luck - hopefully the last time that happens :) I guess from your question that none of the feathers is suitable for the start of the arms? It doesn't matter if not - heading the steam is often necessary when starting out.
Thanks very much for the reply. That's great I have the confidence to make that cut now. Yes buds have just burst. The feathers were all pruned back to about 15cm. As in all of them. By supplier. Maybe to save space. The bottom two 20cm above the graft will work to start from. Your videos are great. Very detailed and explained very clearly.
Thanks.
Thanks :) I do hate it when they do that, although it is quite common... I don't know if it's for transport or maybe they take them for their next batch of grafts... but it's plain vandalism as far as I'm concerned. But no matter, if they are well placed they can be used as they are; it won't matter in the long run. One thing to check is the angle between the main stem and the chosen feathers: narrow angles are weak and prone to bark inclusions - if they are narrow you might then be better developing new ones.
Ok I'll keep that in mind for the angle, thanks.
Yes it is very common. I am new to stone fruit but have a dozen or so Apple and pear. I really struggled to find two suitable pears in same group to start my Espaliers Out of 100s of trees.
That can sometimes be tricky, though they can generally be in neighbouring groups and still work ok.
Hi- I can’t seem to find the follow on video to this to show me how to cut my trees down for initial fab training? Please could you help.
I think these should help: th-cam.com/video/bpHD5N91xh0/w-d-xo.html and then th-cam.com/video/lxxVaBaFGaI/w-d-xo.html
Hi Jonny, I have a question regarding identifying plums. I recently ordered a Kirkes blue and a jubilee plum tree from an online nursery. Jubilee one had a printed label which was assuring but Kirkes blue plant had a hand written label and it also had a remnant of another label which seems to have been cut off. I suspect it might be another kind which was labelled as Kirkes blue and sold to me. I can't really tell until the fruits come out in a year or two. Do you have any suggestions on how to identify if it really is Kirkes blue?
Identifying any fruit tree can be challenging - there are so many varieties, though thankfully less so for plums than apples and pears! You're right that there is little you can do until it fruits, though you may observe modest vigour and a spreading habit consistent with the variety. You can compare the fruit characteristics with known examples of Kirke's Blue such as from the national fruit collection: www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/full2.php?id=8186&&fruit=plum. As well as fruit size, shape, and colour, check other details such as the flowering times (which need to be adjusting for locale and weather conditions), harvest time, stalk length, and look for a freestone. You can also compare with descriptions from various of the old fruit manuals (Taylor, for example). Hope it turns out to be the right one!
@@jonnyskitchengarden thank you very much for your reply. I appreciate.
Can plums be trained as a horizontal cordon? I’ve just planted 2 Asian pears and 2 plums right next to my fence and your video has inspired me to try my hand at espaliering them 😅
I’m not quite sure what it is you want to do; cordons are usually either vertical or then laid down to as much as 45 degrees. You can train a plum as a cordon - some sources say not, but it can be done. It is probably not the most productive form though. The Asian pear should grow well as a cordon, espalier with multiple horizontal tiers, or a fan; the plums would probably be best as a fan, but a cordon if you don’t have the space.
@@jonnyskitchengarden thankyou! I meant espalier into 3 horizontal tiers.
I’ve planted them 7 feet apart, would a fan be able to fit in that space?
That is rather tight - ideally you would want the space to be about twice as wide as it is high, so perhaps closer to 10 or 12 feet apart. You can undoubtedly train something to fill whatever space you have, though - there is always a way to do it - it just might not be quite conventional. The usual way to start a fan is with a short central trunk and two side branches forming a Y shape, with each branch positioned at around 45 degrees. The angle would not work well if your space is narrow. In which case I think I would consider having a longer trunk (a bit more than half the available height), with two or three branches coming off to each side to spread the growth vertically. Treat each side branch as you would for a conventional fan. That should give you a good array of branches for the space you have. I hope they are on dwarfing rootstocks, as they may otherwise be rather vigorous for that size. I would also be cautious with feeding as you don't want to encourage too much vegetative growth.
Thankyou so much ! Very informative and helpful !!
Hi! What did u use to make the trellis that you're training the trees against? (Wire/cable?)
I used reinforcement mesh panels - the stuff usually used in reinforced concrete slabs. These have a 200mm grid of 6mm wire in panels of 2M x 3.6M.
@@jonnyskitchengarden OK, thank you.
@@jonnyskitchengarden Hi , it seems quite noisy when you touch the trees against it from the video, have you found that it is?
Only when working on it - otherwise it seems perfectly fine. If necessary I could add a few more fixings but I haven't noticed any noise at other times.