Winter is here which means that your Stone Fruit Salad Trees and Apple Fruit Salad Trees will start to shed their leaves. Don't stress, this is normal as they are deciduous!

Here's a guide for caring for your Apple, Citrus and Stonefruit Fruit Salad Trees during these Winter months.

Our Top Tips:

1. Clean up fallen leaves, old mulch and rotting fruit from beneath your Fruit Salad Trees. These can harbour pests & diseases and lead to re-infestations in the warmer months.
2. Prune now to neaten and shape your Fruit Salad Tree.
3. Spray to prevent many common problems occurring in the warmer months.
4. Check the Ph of your soil.
5. Fertilise in late Winter.

Clean up any fallen leaves, old mulch & rotting fruit to prevent spread of pests & diseases.

Pruning

Prune about 1/3 of all growth off as a general rule
Open the centre out, so that the sunlight gets into the middle of the tree. This will help all the fruit ripen. It also helps prevent infestations of pests and diseases.
Remove any branches that are crossing over each other
Bring back down to a manageable size so that you can harvest the fruit and tend to the tree more easily.

Spray
We graft with ‘All Climate’ (low chill) and ‘Cold Climate’ (high chill) Apple varieties. Both are susceptible to the same pests and diseases. However, the time for spray application will be slightly different due to their growth cycles varying. ‘All Climate’ Apples tend to wake a little earlier.

Apply a Copper fungicide spray on your apple tree in late Autumn / early Winter after the leaves have fallen. This will help protect the tree against fungal and bacterial diseases, such as Bacterial Canker, Leaf Spot, Fire Blight and Apple Scab, on the new Spring growth. It can also disrupt the life cycle of the codling moth, if it is in your region.

Apple blossom development stages

Check the Ph of your soil – Apples prefer 5.8 to 7.0 pH.

Fertilise in late Winter for early Spring growth, then early Summer and early Autumn. Make sure you vary your trees diet. Complete fertilisers, slow release fertilisers (eg Osmocote for Fruit & Flowers) pelletised fertilisers (eg Dymanic Lifter) and animal manures. Other excellent fertilisers are compost, seaweed solutions and fish emulsion.

Clean Up any fallen leaves and fruit to prevent spread of diseases

Prune your citrus tree once fruiting has finished. Cut it back a little and thin out branching to allow good air circulation and sunlight into the centre of your tree. Remove any deadwood or damages branches. Heavy pruning is not required as the newest growth produces the flowers and thus the fruit!

Protect from Frost
Maintain adequate soil moisture in dry-winter years to help prevent water stress on the trees. Stressed trees are more likely to be damaged by frost. Cover the trees, mainly citrus, with a ‘frost cloth’ or even a hessian bag when frost / extreme cold weather is predicted. If a protective frost cover is used at night, make sure that it is removed each morning to allow bee pollination. Feed with liquid seaweed plus liquid potassium to strengthen cell walls and give the plants a few extra degrees worth of protection. If your tree requires additional nutritional elements, add a mix of dolomite, lime and gypsum, which will increase nutrition and improve leaf appearance without stimulating a flush.

Spray Check for Scale - spray a horticultural oil onto both sides of the leaves. Not recommended in hotter seasons, as the leaves will burn! For more persistent scales on the woody parts of your tree (or roses!) spray Lime sulphur in July. Apply a Copper fungicide spray late in winter to protect your Citrus Fruit Salad Tree against fungal diseases such as Root Rot, Citrus Canker, and Citrus Scab. Copper spray also deters slugs and snails.

Check for Aphids on the new leaves and buds - soapy water will deter them.

Check the Ph of your soil – Citrus prefer 5.5 to 6.5 pH.

Fertilise in late Winter. Ideally, fertilise three to four times a year - late Winter for early Spring growth, then early Summer and again in early Autumn. Make sure you vary your tree’s diet. Complete Citrus fertilisers, slow-release fertilisers (eg Osmocote for Citrus) pelletised fertilisers (eg Dymanic Lifter) and animal manures are all good. Add trace elements once a year.

Tip: Don’t feed your Citrus tree Nitrogen-rich products such as chicken or cow manures until after it has finished flowering and the fruit is pea-sized. Too much Nitrogen will stimulate new leafy growth but will cause flowers and fruit to drop off. Instead, add some Potash, a seaweed fertiliser and some Epsom Salts for sweet juicy fruit.

Clean up all fallen leaves, old mulch & rotting fruit to prevent the spread of pests & diseases.

Pruning – Stonefruit produce fruit on stems that are one year old, so it's important not to cut off all of last year's growth.

Prune about 1/3 of all growth off as a general rule
Open the centre out, so that the sunlight gets into the middle of the tree. This will help all the fruit ripen. It also helps prevent infestations of pests and diseases.
Remove any branches that are crossing over each other
Bring back down to a manageable size so that you can harvest the fruit and tend to the tree more easily.

Spray all branches and the trunk thoroughly with Lime Sulphur in May or early winter, when the tree has dropped it’s leaves and is dormant. It is also important that this spraying is done before bud swell (see chart below) to control Leaf Curl. Two applications are necessary – spray again in 1 week. Be warned – it is a bit smelly! Lime Sulphur will also control other Stonefruit diseases like Rust, Shot Hole and Freckle, which hide on fruit tree stems during winter, as well as some scale insects. The Lime sulphur spray is effective but if you miss applying it in early winter, spray a Copper fungicide (Copper oxychloride) later in winter, when the tree is waking up and buds are starting to swell (budswell). It is also applied twice, 1 week apart.

Tip: If you have an Apricot on your Fruit Salad Tree, then use the Copper spray option only as the Lime sulphur mixture could upset them.

Check the Ph of your soil – Stonefruit prefer 6.0 to 7.0 pH.

Blossoms - Grab your camera as your Stonefruit trees may start flowering soon! These blossoms will eventually set into fruits. Exciting right?! On our Stonefruit trees, the first pink flowers are often the Yellow Peaches. Feel free to use the #myfruitsaladtree hashtag to share your tree's progress with us!

Important note: Plums "wake up" last, often 2-3 weeks later than other Stonefruits. Don't think your Plum is dead, it's just "sleeping in"!