Crapapple Espalier - Dormant Pruned and Starting To Break Buds - April 2025

I seem to have failed to post photos and details of the dormant pruning that I did earlier this year on the pair of SugarTyme Crabapple trees that are trained into horizontal cordon espalier on the south side of our house.  The last time I posted about these was in September 2024 when the trees were going ham with new growth and tons of foliage.  At that time, I talked about the need to prune back both of these this Winter and noted how the tree on the right was growing faster/stronger/bigger than the one on the right.

I pruned both of them while the trees were dormant, but I seem to have only take a photo when I had pruned back *just* the tree on the left and before I started with the one on the right.  That photo is below:

I ended up pruning both back, of course.  And, they're now breaking bud with early foliage.  Below is a photo from this week (mid-April) showing the first sets of leaves emerging on both trees.  

The photo above shows a few details worth calling out.

Both trees have the top three rows of the espalier in-tact and putting on size.  

The tree on the left has half of the fourth layer (from the top), yet teh tree on the right has a full fourth layer.  

I've also left in-place a pair of lower branches on both trees.  These will NOT remain - they're too low to the ground - but I didn't want to prune off *too much* this Spring.  I'll prune them back later this year after the tree grows a little bit.  

The training frames are still needed in order to keep the branches from curling upwards, but based on the Lindens, the top level is going to begin to thicken-up this year and become pretty rigid.  

These went in the ground in 2021.  This is the fourth full growing season for the pair.  They're four-years-behind the Linden trees.  Here's what those Lindens looked like four years ago.