How To Prune and Stake Up A Young Persimmon Tree

day after we planted our persimmon tree we're back here again to finish off as I mentioned yesterday this is the tree we planted here we replaced the rose and I haven't done anything with the rose it's still quite well it's winter it's dormant so it'll be quite safe now the way we like to stake our trees up is in a triangular formation I've done this a couple of times and I'll show you again and it's basically putting three Garden Stakes this is in the case but this is what I'm using tomato steaks that's how I know them in a perfect triangular form so one just here as you saw already and one over here now a couple of things we're going to do today to finish this off which we obviously didn't do yesterday and that is put extra moles down because I need to get an extra good covering of moss on top and this time I brought my watering uh what do you call those watering can there you go I was going to call it a watering wand or Rose but it's a can with the rose on the end so we're going to give it some Ike Butch and liquid gold but before we do that more importantly let's talk about the shape of the tree now we're looking at a persimmon tree this generally produces fruit on its currencies and growth so any new growth that's coming on is where you'll get your fruit from Plus on last year's growth so this is as what you'll see here are last year's shoots and this is where the fruit will come from if it decides to flower and fruit and they take a good five years to start fruiting these plants they're not the fastest of Growers and ideally with persimmon trees you don't want them to grow Too Tall either now the shape that we've got here at the moment is basically as while we know it or it's called is a central leader quite obvious because you've got one trunk running straight up there now I'm just under six foot I like to think I'm six two but only when I'm wearing my high heels at the moment I'm five foot seven or something like that so this is pushing at least six one six two up there okay now that's a central leader if we do nothing with that it will keep growing now with the central leader the aim is to get lateral branches or as known better known as scaffold so that's the frame that goes out so your typical scaffold around the house when they're doing building sites they put something out horizontally like that that's what you want in a persimmon tree to do so we and you want to establish at least five or six scaffolds or lateral branches strong ones evenly spaced now when I say inverly space have a look at these here so we've got a lot of scaffold branches or laterals coming out here which are very close to each other we don't want them that close so we're going to remove some of these not now it's way too early we are going to keep these three and then we're going to work with this one and probably these couple here but what we are going to do today is bring the height down because if we don't it'll keep growing this is called central leader you can have a modified central leader as well or modified leader which means you basically take it down as I'm going to do today and then from there wherever you prune you'll find it'll come out with two shoots now out of those two shoots you'll only keep one you don't want a double shoot going up again you'll only keep the stronger one of the two but that by doing that that will encourage more lateral growth here so you'll start to get this to fill out more and that will become a modified central leader so that means by pruning the center out getting more lateral branches or scaffolds and then picking your five six seven maximum strong ones that you want to keep you could also do a open vars which is an open shape Tree open vars shape and that way what we do with that rather than cutting it at the top up here at five or six foot we actually cut it down here probably in this case realistically if I was going to hit this that you probably get a shock probably around here folks there or even down to here now that's too close I reckon around here probably is where we'll get a couple of buds coming out so if I was to cut it and do an open vars shape I would work around there and it probably even risk it and go down here so you've got a couple of choices why I say up here is that we'll try to get another Branch to fill out on this side but we have got that one there as well but we can also train these three to go out there like that and you can see in the past yeah we've nipped these back already once okay so they've been cut back once and you see what's happened they forked out so for every prune you do you get in result in return to new shoots and that's how you'll get your fruit on these tips here if you leave these to grow like that they'll continue to grow out you'll get some fruit off them but if you nip them back and get them to multiply you'll get multiple branches nice ones evenly spaced just and then you get lots of more fruit I said they're like a Greek anyway all right so before we tie it up I'm gonna go like this and I want you all as you're watching to say no no no no no no no no no no no no no or yes when you want me to cut it all right I'm going to channel you all in my head and in the secateurs I can hear no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no oh yes did I get that right well we can go down here as well folks so you've got a couple options there so we're going to work with that there so what we wanted to do is push out more energy in these lower branches here or the upper branches now ideally the shape is going to be almost a is it a cone shape is it a dome shape or what do you want to call that almost like a pyramid shape not the perfect shape as a pyramid but you wanted to narrow in as it gets taller now we have got that and don't get full that's not a double it's a scaffold or a lateral growing out there that is last year's growth there all that there that's where it was it was nipped off last time the year before or even last year and then by Springtime we had this growth come out to that point there we don't need to cut that anymore that's as much as I'm going to cut on these three because we already tackled this once last year what we wanted to do now is establish its roots settle down and thicken up in the trunk and the only way that's going to happen is by stabilizing the tree and to stabilize this tree here we're using three points of tying and that's in a triangular formation as we said before so we're going to pull it right in One Direction here in another Direction there adding another one there now you can see there's a natural lean in that direction so we're going to pull it over here at the top and if you come from this angle here you can see it better that this needs to be pulled up to there and held in that vertical position and then we need to just gently pull it back somewhere around here in that direction and that way we're stabilizing the tree all right so let's put these Garden stakes in so we've got three ties one for each one just gonna sit it here for now like this anyway that's going to go on that side so we do a figure eight on these and try and work just above a branch like that there you can if you like so it's not rubbing like this and it shouldn't rub like this because we're going to do it tight enough so it's nice and steady but just to avoid that rubbing you can allow it to go around once like that and that will stabilize it see we're going to have a bit of a challenge here and more importantly just look at the Garden State here folks and go around a couple of times as I've just done it here and again entire back there that way it doesn't slip down so you've got to do a bit of a loop around now I'm just pulling it I haven't tensioned it yet but I'm trying to see if that's level there looks pretty level you want to get this level from the beginning you don't want it sitting like that and thinking yeah that'll be right and we can straighten it up because as it thickens up it's going to hold that shape forever so that's okay there we may need to do a couple of goes at this to get the right level at the end yeah that's just gone below there see what happens if we'll leave it below there that shouldn't fall because I've looped it around once and see how we've got a few buds here nodes popping out there's one just on the other side there so if it was to drag it down to that node see right there that node is going to stop it from sliding down any further and again wrap it around yeah this steak is a little bit loose is it the ground's just super wet but I can't imagine this blowing around too much if it does at all and again haven't I just complained nothing about about the weather here folks all it does it blows and we're gonna pull it at the bottom so at the bottom we've got a bit of a curve going on this is trying to be a perfectionist here you know that's anything but what I am at the moment so we're going to pull it across there so we're going to try and get that straight and that way we've got almost vertical line there so down below because if we just pull it on that side it's not enough this may need two points of tying so one download here like that and then we'll just check the top section because see it can wobble it's not that bad but if we did tie it up that's going to stop the wobble completely all right so we're doing one Higher here now the backseat drivers in my family have told me that I've stuck these in where I dug a hole so that means they've gone down too deep which is true I should have stuck these Garden Stakes outside the hole which I would have gained a bit more height because I need a bit more height here because this garden tree well it's a garden tree isn't it that God is not a well what else could it be a house tree it could be this tree is taller than the stakes and we need to get this lined up here see that there see that curve there not good not happy that one there and then we're going to just tighten this up a little bit more like that so we'll tighten this up we'll grab another Garden so they can see if my backseat Drive is correct and I'm wrong pretty much always the case isn't it I'm just gonna stick this seat where I haven't dug before and I guarantee you it's going to go as deep as the other ones almost yeah it's it's not bad what can I say I'm right he's wrong that is soft ground there I only did that just for shits and giggles folks just to annoy him but what we've got to do we'll leave it in here for now like that it's a young tree it's not that very sturdy meaning it's not very stiff and really at the end of the day you can be bedanding and do that see that just that little bit there it's just a little bit there I'm going to be walking past it every day it's going to annoy me so I'm gonna do it like that put it there I've got it right I've got to re-tension everything again all right this one here is not actually pulling the tree anymore because we don't want to pull it any further we just want to stabilize it so that the wind doesn't come along and pushes it the other way okay so we're stabilizing it in the opposite direction and that's it there it's a bit messy but seriously Folks at the end of the day if you really are looking to grow a nice upright tree with a you know a semi central leader or a modified central leader you need to stake them up you need to stake them up neatly controlled like this and that way you get a nice trunk on it because once he does it establish it's like your typical espalia work a little bit of care taken in the early days you get a nice structural tree which is going to be strong sturdy and then able to produce lots of fruit for years to come last thing we've got to do extra miles and give it a good feed oh just the light hydration of the moles to activate the composting process folks that's all we need to do here and when it rains it'll just soak its way through down the base now some people like to step on the root Zone when they backfill it I used to do it in the early days but I don't like doing that anymore I find especially with bare rooted trees better root of trees that is um you can cause a bit of damage on them you're flattening out the roots as you're pressing down you can flood the hole with water and just hydrate it really well then back filling becomes a bit of slurry and over time that'll dry out pretty quickly as long as it doesn't rain every day or you just do what I do give it a hydrate like this come back the next day give it another one or you can come in with a host don't put any liquid feed and just hydrate it really well so planting fruit trees it's a season to be plenty folks here's one I've got a few more to go I've got a couple of hundred on the property at the moment that need a bit of attention and if you're interested in learning a bit more about this check out our workshops that we're holding Here Fruit Tree workshops myself and with Craig castry on our website they're selling pretty quick here the the booking out the spots are booking out really quick so take advantage before we do sell out and come down and have a great day with us or hands-on experience just like this otherwise check out our website facilitiesgarden.com out in the financial year sale is still on use the coupon code eofy to get yourself a big discount and enjoy some great products every day from either silly [Music]

Channel: Vasili's Garden

Views: 9,019

Keywords: Health, (Industry), Food, (TV, Genre), Gardening, (Interest), Garden, Television, Network, Network), Australia, (Country), Better, Homes, And, Gardens, Program), Magazine, (Website, Category)Bookselling, Horticulture, (Field, Of, Study), Smoothie, (Food), Milkshake, Medicine

Id: La4zrywzwKA

Length: 14min 36sec (876 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 21 2023