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Today I'm back at my apple tree that I started from seed away back in 2015
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Here you can see last September has stopped growing for this season and a few of the leaves have changed colour
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If I come in closer you can see a lot of them are starting to turn a lovely dark red colour
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In October there was quite a few more yellows and oranges in there
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oranges in there. It's a bit leggy but I think in the future this tree could have a very nice
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display at this time of year. In November there's only a few leaves holding on and we can start to
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see the structure a little more clearly. I think there's going to be plenty of pruning happening
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pretty soon. I hear the leaves close up. You can really see they've changed a lot of colour since
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the start of autumn. I really like it when they're this yellowy orange colour
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In December it's fully dormant so it's just going to be left until the end of winter
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In February it's time to finally deal with this mess. It grew really well last season but now it needs pruned back
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I started by just removing this stub. It was pretty long and ugly and there's no point keeping it there any longer
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I just pretty much shortened everything back I got rid of all the badly pressed blanches last year so I didn really need to remove much No major cuts anyway i just trimmed everything back you can see it still pretty messy but overall it not the worst
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i think it has some potential obviously it needs a lot more development and ramification
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but as far as a primary structure goes i think i can work with this and as you can see i was bending some branches down i think some wire at some point could really
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help this tree. At the start of March the buds are swelling although they're pretty hard to see from
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here. Maybe you can see them a little better from here. I don't think you can but the tree is starting
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to wake up which means it's the perfect time to repot. Maybe you can see the buds now. There's
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definitely a few leaves open in here so it's definitely the right time to be doing the work
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Normally I would try and rake the top layer of soil out, but it had a good feeling that
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a little karate chop might work on this tree, and it did. It came straight out. It's been in here for two years, so I'm expecting a lot of roots
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and that is exactly what I got. I then just start trying to loosen everything and untangle it all
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The soil is still quite loose, so that's a good thing. Look at this root here it crazy long It always blows my mind just how long the
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roots can get on these little trees. Here is the root ball with all the soil off
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It isn't too bad. There are a few long roots but overall it isn't too bad
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This root here is ridiculously high so it has to go. I then just started t everything back, just to get back to a more manageable size
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And here's what I was left with
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It's not too bad. It's not the best root ball I've ever seen
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but it's flat and it's radial, so I'm happy enough of it. It's only going to keep getting better
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I didn't just put it up in the same pot since it's doing pretty well in there. Here in April you can see the leaves are pretty much open now
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And I put a few stones on the pod just because it got a little windy outside and I didn't want anything to blow away
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In May it's looking very happy. All the new growth is out and it seems very healthy
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In June it's a little too leggy so I pruned it back. I'd actually forgotten I did this
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I was looking at the tree the other day and wondering why it hadn't grown too much
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Clearly it's been growing very well it just this is my pruning that's keeping it short
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I just shortened everything back here it was all pretty simple. That's probably why I had forgotten I did it
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and here it is after looking much tidier and there's not much going on it's just recovering from that pruning but it's happy enough still
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and here we are now where there's still not much happening but that's fine it's probably
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going to explode with growth any day now