Apple Trees

One of our apple trees

Since we have 10 apple trees in our garden I thought that might be a good place to start up again with our tree focus for our nature study. Here’s what I learned about apple trees from the Handbook of Nature Study:

-         The trunk is generally short and stocky

-         The bark is a soft grey colour and quite flaky.

-         The wood is very fine-grained and heavy, and it is great for wood-carving or for fuel.

-         The leaves are oval, with toothed edges and long petioles

We usually get a good harvest of apples from our trees, but since we don’t spray them at all there’s usually a worm lurking inside each apple! We do try to prune occasionally, so I was interested to know what the Handbook said about pruning:

-         Every child should know that

o       Pruning the root cuts down the amount of moisture which the tree is able to get from the soil.

o       But Pruning of the top throws the food into the branches that are left and makes them more vigorous.

-         If the buds at the tips of the twigs are pruned off, the food is forced into the side buds and into the fruit, which make greater growth.

-         Thinning the branches allows more light to reach into the tree.

-         A limb should be pruned off smoothly where it joins the larger limb, without leaving a stump projecting, and the wound should be painted so as not to allow fungus spores to enter.

Apple Blossom - picture taken by Sophie

How an apple grows

-         On the tip of each twig is a cluster of blossoms, surrounded by pale, soft, downy leaves.

-         The oval petals (pink on the outside and white on the inside) are set between the lobes of the calyx, which appears as a beautiful, pale green, five-pointed star at the bottom of the flower.

-         A cluster of greenish white stamens of different lengths, attached to the rim of the calyx-cup, stand up like a column at the centre of the flower. They are tipped with pale, yellow anthers.

-         The pistils all unite at their bases making a five-lobed, compound ovary, the upper part of which may be seen.

-         The calyx-cup develops into the pulp of the apple, and each of the pistils becomes one of the five cells in the apple core.

-         If one of the stigmas does not receive pollen its ovary will develop no seed, which often makes the apple lopsided.

-         There may be many blossoms developing from one winter bud, but usually only two of these blossoms develop into fruit, and the fruit is much better when only one blossom produces an apple. 

-     If a tree bears too many apples it cannot perfect them.