About crabapple....THEY SAY....

Mike Corazzi

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...in various places that one should prune crabs hard into wood.
Is this true? I want to preserve the long branch and I have a pot for it next year. If I prune down that branch won't it stop flowering?

crab full bloom.JPG
 

leatherback

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I have not found a reason to prune carps any different than other deciduous. So I am not sure what you mean that you have to prune into hard wood.

Just make sure you do not prune off the small stubby branches where the flowers were this year. These flowering branches, or spurrs, may produce buds year after year, besides making new flower-carrying buds on new branches.
 

Mike Corazzi

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I have not found a reason to prune carps any different than other deciduous. So I am not sure what you mean that you have to prune into hard wood.

Just make sure you do not prune off the small stubby branches where the flowers were this year. These flowering branches, or spurrs, may produce buds year after year, besides making new flower-carrying buds on new branches.
That's what I read it to say. Didn't make logical sense. I took it like the sun exposure and budding on pines.
Thought you had to strip the sticks or it wouldn't bloom.
Glad I was wrong.
 

penumbra

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In development I don't mind losing the spurs and thus flowers. But if that is part of your plan then you have to do it.
 

Hump

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What substrate or mix are you using for your crabapple?
 

meushi

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Wouldn't the "prune back hard to the wood" advice come from Brent to develop trunk and taper?
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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If you want to keep a long branch because you like it, by all means, keep it. It's your tree, not someone else's.

If it were mine, I would move it to a much larger nursery pot and let it grow wild a few more years, you don't have enough branches to choose from to really style the tree. Or at least that's what I see from the photos.
 

Mycin

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Crabapples can develop gnarly trunks that contrast well with the flowers and fruit. Your tree is beautiful but I don't think it will ever reach its potential with the trunk looking as it is.

x2 for the suggestion to put in a big pot to grow out
 
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