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[Uwillard@aol.com]

I recently received and planted 13 new trees, and was surprised at the variations in size and form, amount of roots, etc. Some of them I was at a complete loss for how to prune. The books just don't talk about what to do when the tree shoots off in one direction at a 20 degree angle! To be more specific:

The Williams Pride apple. The rootstock is vertical, and the tree come off to the left nearly horizontal to the ground and curves up, ending up pointing to about 10 o clock. The caliper of the trunk is fairly large, about 5/8 inch near the rootstock. I can't see how this shape would make a strong tree.

The Newtown Pippin apple. A nice straight tree, caliper about 1/2 inch, and barely a root on it.

The Stayman apple. Comes off the rootstock pointing to 2 o'clock, turns at a pruning cut back to 10 o'clock.

Several of the trees have long rootstock sections before the graft, around 8 inches. To get the graft union 3 inches above the ground, I had to really bury them deep and wasn't at all sure if this was right.

Also, several of the trees had a lot of branches, most right at the top where the tree had been pruned for shipping. (Some of these were labeled 'feathered' and I paid more for them.)Some of them were a mess, shooting of this way and that from various pruning cuts close together. Ah! I thought I was going to be pruning back whips to 36"! What a challenge. Some of the trees I ended up pruning off the whole mess to about 24" so I could start over and pick my own branches. I do have an artistic eye and like trees to be nicely shaped, but some of these don't even seem very functional.

 

I got these trees from a reputable nursery, and since I have little experience I don't know if these trees are fine and normal or not. A few of the trees were lovely and straight, with good roots and a graft union of reasonable height. There was a snowstorm at the time they shipped, and I almost wonder if they pulled some of my trees from the misfit pile. Any opinions about this, and help on how to prune would be appreciated!

 

Uma, East TN zone 6