Fan apple trees & wisteria

[germanshepforever]

i have recently moved house and now trying to get the garden sorted. We have a wisteria which has been trained around a pergola which is lovely but then there are also two apple trees which are in a fan shape, the problem is they have been left for years without being pruned or kept in shape. Is it best to just do a hard cut on both now and risk not getting flowers or fruit this year, any advice appreciated 😅

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Forgot to say the apple trees and wisteria are that overgrown they are intertwined now

I have an espalier apple and a wisteria.

The wisteria is easy, you should be able to do it yourself without losing much flowering because at this time of year you usually cut each shoot back to two or three buds anyway. The difficult bit is going to be deciding which if any of the long spurs you want to keep to fill in any big gaps in the framework. To be honest, though, they grow like crazy so even if you do have gaps in the framework, by next year you'll have loads of new long shoots you can use to fill in. Also, if you cut the wisteria right back you'll have a fighting chance of seeing what's actually going on with the apples.

My apple was very overgrown when we moved in and I did manage to renovate it myself, but it takes a while and it's all too easy to take off bits you later realise you should have kept. Unlike the wisteria, these take years to regrow. If you can stretch to it I'd get a decent tree surgeon in to tackle the apples and leave you with a basic framework that you'll be able to manage yourself going forward.

I wouldn't leave either the apples or the wisteria much longer as thay both need to be done before the weather warms up. Good luck.

@MontyDonsBlueScarfhey Thankyou for your reply :) much appreciated. I have been out today and gave the wisteria a really good cut back hopefully will still get some flowers this year 😊 I am looking at having someone come in to show me how to prune the apples but it looks a lot better already now the wisteria has been cut back and untangled I will attach a photo of how intertwined they were!

This is a before and after today I hope I have cut it back enough I cut back to 2/3 buds

Well done! That should give you a good display this year. Make a note to tackle it again in August when you can have a good go at shaping it and taking out any excess. By then it will be a lot more obvious what you do and don't want.

My wisteria has outlived the pergola, which was old and in pretty poor condition when we moved in 20 years ago. Now some of the beams have completely rotted away in places, but what remains is held in place by the wisteria which has thickened up and completely wrapped itself round them. Who knew structural wisteria could be a thing.😁