The Best Ways To Care for Your Apple Trees

Apple trees are some of the most beautiful trees you can have on your property. The fruit itself is just a nice bonus when you get to enjoy the tree all year round. Whether you’ve just gotten a new place with apple trees or you want to plant one for yourself, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with how apple trees grow and what they need to flourish. We’ll go over some of the best ways to care for your apple trees so that you can get the most out of them for a long time.

Employ Disease and Pest Control

Perhaps one of the more challenging parts of owning an apple tree is dealing with their susceptibility to certain diseases and pest infestations. For casual apple tree–owners, keeping the fruit completely organic is a real challenge because apple trees tend to need the assistance of pesticides to keep the fruit safe. Make sure you know what cultivar of apple tree you have, as the need for pesticides and fungicides might be more imminent depending on the species.

Allow Full Sun Exposure

The best way to care for your apple trees is to plant them somewhere they can get a lot of sun throughout most of the day. Apple trees do best when they can fully be in the sunlight for at least eight hours a day. The more sunlight an apple tree absorbs, the more fruit it will produce and the better that fruit’s quality will be.

Use Soil That Drains Quickly

One important part of raising any fruit tree is that the soil must be able to drain properly and quickly. Fruit trees need a decent amount of water, but letting that water stick around for too long is bad for the tree. If your soil won’t drain, you could end up waterlogging the roots of your apple tree. Ensure that your soil doesn’t hold onto water for too long before planting a fruit tree in it.

Have a Pollination Buddy Nearby

A large number of apple cultivars are not self pollinating. What this means is that you won’t actually get any fruit unless you have another, different tree nearby to provide pollen for your apple tree. The presence of pollinators such as bees and birds is also something else you need to consider. Otherwise, you’re essentially wasting a huge portion of the tree’s potential.