Summer Pruning of Trained Apple Trees

I spent a great day alongside brilliant Head Gardener Neil Munro at the historic Hill Close Gardens in Warwick. They've a wonderful collection of apple trees, many of which are heritage varieties and it was such a pleasure to work on the trained forms for their summer pruning. Very different in purpose to winter pruning, in the summer it's all about letting light in to help ripen the fruit and to improve airflow through the trees to help limit attack by pests such as woolly aphid and diseases such as powdery mildew. Concentrate on pruning back only the vigorous (usually vertical) new growth, distinguished as a different colour to the previous years growth which should be visible above the rings or scars of the basal leaf cluster. This will generate a surprising volume of prunings, as can be seen in our wheelbarrows here, but this will lessen the work to do in winter when you're looking to work on the shape and form of the trees. All these young shoots can be cut back to between 3-5 buds above the basal cluster, making your cut above a outward facing bud. Check not to remove the shorter growth (probably 20cm or less) terminating in fruiting buds - these will be rounded/furry whereas leaf buds will be flat/scale-like. With espaliers you must leave a leader on every branch (tying it in before starting pruning is a good idea) and with a cordon leaving the leader at the top. This will ensure any rush of new growth after pruning will go into the leader. Doing this should hopefully promote the formation of fruiting spurs in subsequent years and the tree will look really tidy as a result too.