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Hey, I'm wondering if anyone has advice on how to get to those higher branches on my fruit hedges/fruit trees? I've got some tall crab apple hedges surrounding the entrance to our land and have other fruit trees that need pruning. I've not got too much gardening experience but me and my partner are quite eager to get more involved in the garden now that we've moved to our new home. I'm not too fond of getting up and down ladders so I wondered what other techniques/equipment people use to get up high? Often the branches can be quite thick so that makes things tricky too. As far as crab apples go, I had no real idea what they were until a neighbour told us. Are there any uses for the fruit or are they more for aesthetics?

We use long handled loppers on our fruit and nut trees, which saves a bit of up and down the ladder time. Some of the thicker branches take quite a bit of strength, but they are perfectly doable this way. Many of our neighbours use hydraulic pruners, which are much easier to use, but cost a fortune. Crab apples are great for making jam/jelly, chutney, sauce, apple cider vinegar and pectin. I suspect they'd be great for cider too.

Crab apples are brilliant for wine, and they can be used in cider (sorry no help with pruning)

Great thanks,

I'll have a look later then when I get home and see what I can find on long handled loppers.

Crab Apple wine sounds cool, was reading earlier you can do jams with it too apparently. You don't really eat raw like normal apples but they can be nice when cooked-up and prepared right.

I have a thing called a pole pruner, it comes with an extension pole, so you can probably get up about 10 foot or so it has a rope that you pull to operate the pruner at the top once you get it round your selected branch. Crab apples make a good jelly and are perfect mixed with blackberries as they have a lot of pectin to help set your jam or jelly

STOP THE PRESS

Telescopic pruners/saws in Lidl at the moment

bit like this

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/6 ... L1500_.jpg

I've seen the pole lopper many times - you probably need two to steer till you get used to it but it works well.

I got a pole pruner from L a few years ago and it works pretty well

I have had to repair it a few times mind

Mine is a steel pole, but the one I saw in the shop yesterday is aluminum

They also do an electric pole saw from time to time

Mine is a Fiskars one, wooden

diggernotdreamer wrote:Crab apples make a good jelly and are perfect mixed with blackberries

They're even better with roast pork.

Thanks for all the advice, I'm looking forward to my wife experimenting with the crab apple ideas you've given us.

I've found an Irish auction site that does lots of new or used long-reach hedge trimmers. The petrol ones seem more heavy duty and I'd imagine they'll do a better job of cutting the larger branches. Some of them have a load of additional attachments for different tasks. I had no idea you could get these kind of trimmers with additional attachments. Just deciding on one to get, trying to compare reviews. Want something that isn't prone to burning out or breaking. This is going to make the gardening chores a lot less tedious and far less daunting. Thanks again

Apparently, slow roasted crab apples are meant to be nice too so we'll definitely try that. I'm a big fruit chutney fan so we'll be making plenty of chutneys when the season comes round.