Flowering Apricot Defoliation

[SnickersUK]

Hi all, I live in the UK and have a Flowering Apricot in development. I defoliated 60-70% of it in early May when the weather was good and then we had nothing but rain and cloud.

There still hasn't been a second flush of growth that I would expect and I don't know whether I haven't removed enough leaves or the tree just doesn't want to push out new growth, maybe because a month of rain somehow weakened it.

What are your thoughts? I'm kind of thinking this is my last opportunity to defoliate it this year now but I don't want to weaken the tree if it's trying to tell me that it doesn't have the energy reserves.

Thanks

 

[BobbyLane]

why did you defoliate it
yeh many trees took a while to get going this year, poor spring all around. probably not the best conditions to defoliate a tree. bit early too.

 

[SnickersUK]

why did you defoliate it
yeh many trees took a while to get going this year, poor spring all around. probably not the best conditions to defoliate a tree. bit early too.

Thanks for the response. I did the same thing last year and received a nice second flush of growth, I think I'm just going to leave it and see what happens over the next few weeks.

 

[BobbyLane]

how many flushes do they put out if you dont defoliate? im not familiar with the species. had one once n sold it

 

[Dav4]

A strong ume can push at least 2-3 times after new growth is cut back. Other then periodically removing a few leaves at the base of branches prior to cut back, I don't defoliate ume.

 

[Canada Bonsai]

I don't know whether I haven't removed enough leaves

This has worked reliably for me:

It is also worth noting that, in my experience, when following this approach it is unnecessary to remove the initial leaves at the base of new shoots to guarantee the development of vegetative buds as opposed to flower buds, as described by Lynn Perry Alstadt in International Bonsai 1982.1. In following the approach described by Bjorn, my trees have reliably produced vegetative buds at those initial nodes (and Bjorn confirmed for me that he has experienced the same).

However, I want to be clear that the approach described by Lynn Perry Alstad also works! It looks like @Dav4 does that, and @Adair M and @Brian Van Fleet have also used it with clear success --i highly recommend performing searches in this forum on the topic with the names of these guys!

I only mention the comparison because it is not possible to do both approaches simultaneously (i.e. one cannot leave only the leaves at the base of each stem and also remove the leaves at the base of each stem).

Figuring out which approach you want to go with will depend on your objectives with the tree, because there are a few subtle differences in effect. Thinking about the differences is one of the greatest joys in bonsai, like discovering a brilliant move in chess.