Pruning experiment follow-up. 

 

Back in Issue 33 you will recall I wrote a piece about differing pruning methods and promised at the time that I would keep you informed as to the progress of these two trees. Case Study 1 was carried out on the FNBC tree in the National Collection last year. (’05) You will recall that this tree was totally overgrown and in need of radical treatment. In other words it got a severe hair cut as picture on page 13 of issue 33 will testify.

With such heavy pruning I expected to see many new shoots appear over the subsequent months and the picture below will bear this out.

This picture was taken less than 3 months after pruning and you can already see new growth all over the tree. (In some places up to 1" (25mm) in length.                                                                                               

                 Just one of the many new shoots.

 

Because of the heavy pruning carried out the tree, as expected, didn’t produce many flowers,

as expected, this year which is good. It means that the tree has been able to concentrate on putting on new growth instead of wasting energy on flowers. In fact, if it had produced a mass of flowers I would have removed half to two thirds. I apologise for the quality of the following two photos but I think you can still see the amount of new growth put on over the year. Next year, ’07, this tree should be covered in flowers, fingers crossed!!!!

 

             Pictures taken in May 2006

 

Case Study 2 results – no need for words, the following picture taken at the Gardeners World Live show this year tells it all!