The eternal problem of summer residents is the lack of space. I want to plant a lot, but the site has borders, you need to carefully plan the distribution of the area. If it is possible to conduct experiments in the garden at least every year, this number will not work with the garden.
Each tree requires enough space for the roots and crown. For such cases, there are columnar fruit trees, which take up little space due to the fact that they have one trunk and no crown. This article will tell you how to grow a columnar apple and how to care for it.
Colony Apple: General Description
Kolonovidnye, or pyramidal apple trees appeared in the middle of the last century as a result of random hybridization, which found that engaged in their selection. The columnar apple has one trunk, on it, instead of shoots of Kolchatka, a fruit-tree and a spear, on which the formation of flower buds takes place. Fruiting lasts an average of 15 years.
Did you know? The farmer, who found a strange hybrid, was called Viichik, and his half-century-old apple tree with an unusual branch was Macintosh. Thus, the first cultivated variety of the columnar apple was called "Mac Vitochik". But in Russian-language terminology, the name was deformed into “Macintosh Leader”.
Landing features
The seedling of a columnar apple should not be older than a year, otherwise it will be worse to take root. If you plant several plants at the same time, you need to have them at a distance of half a meter to a meter from each other.
Kolonovidnye apple do not like:
- drafts;
- shadow;
- the proximity of groundwater.
To get a high and high-quality crop of apples, you need to know how to whip the columnar apple trees in the garden, properly care for and prune, and fight pests and diseases.
Sun or shade
The columnar apple should be planted in the place where it will receive enough sun, since it is very light-loving. Ideally position it near the southern wall of the house so that the sun, moving from east to west, illuminates it all day. In the shadow of columnar apple tree strongly drawn.
General landing rules
Colon-shaped apple trees, like all fruit trees, can be planted in the spring, before woody juices awake. But planting a columnar apple in the fall is preferable; it will give the plant the opportunity to adapt and overwinter. 
Did you know? If you purchase seedlings in a tub, you can plant colon-shaped fruit trees with a clod of earth in the summer.
How to plant columnar apple trees, step by step instructions.
- Ahead of time, for a couple of weeks to prepare a hole for seedlings. It should be deep, a depth meter in width and length. When digging, fertile soil should be folded separately from the barren soil.
- Place on the bottom of the pit drainage from the gravel and sand.
- Mix the fertile part of the soil with 30-40 liters of humus or compost, add 100 g of superphosphate and potash fertilizer, 100 g of dolomite flour under the condition of acidic soil, mix and lay in the pit. Leave on for two weeks.
- Plant an apple tree in the prepared soil, cover it with barren soil from the pit, making sure that the root collar is above the surface.
- Form a hole around the tree, pour two buckets of water into it.
- After soaking water zamulchirovat tree trunks. Suitable for mulching grass, peat, sawdust.
- Tie up a tree to support, if needed.
Important! During transport, the roots of seedlings must not dry out!
When spring planting, the pits should be prepared in autumn, so that the fertilizers dissolve, the soil coalesces and the roots fall into a favorable environment.
Did you know? Coloniform varieties of apple trees are extremely skoroplodny: a seedling planted in spring can bloom in the first year. In this case, it is better to completely remove the ovary so that the tree will fully adapt and gain strength.
How to care for the trees, tips on growing
Colon-shaped apple trees look great, their planting is compact and takes up little space, they give a good harvest, but they require careful maintenance, timely watering and fertilizing, loosening the soil and removing weeds. 
Did you know? Kolonovidnye apple can live up to half a century, but they bear fruit for about 15 years.
It happens that the care of the columnar apple causes difficulties for gardeners. So, sometimes the apical bud is damaged, which is the growth point of a tree that has one trunk and does not have a crown. The most common cause of her injuries - otmerzanie.
The death of the kidneys leads to the growth of "spare" shoot. Then the tree will grow in several trunks. If you want it to be strictly compact in one trunk, you should choose the strongest one from the additional shoots and remove the rest.
Watering colony varieties
The root-shaped apple trees have a fibrous root system, it is located close to the surface, therefore the plants require regular moistening. Watering method is better to choose drip.
Important! Watering should be moderate: excess moisture will block access of oxygen to the roots, which will lead to the death of the tree.
If the summer weather is normal, water the young apples should be twice a week, if arid - every other day, or even daily. Mature trees can be watered less often. By the end of the summer it is recommended to stop watering, to give the plant the opportunity to prepare for winter.
Did you know? In the dry summer, once every two weeks in the evening it is recommended to “bathe” the columnar apple trees: plentifully water the trees with a hose, imitating rain.
Feeding fruit
After the shoot out leaves, the plant needs fertilizer. Top dressing of columnar apple trees is done in spring, at the beginning of the growing season. Then it should be repeated twice more at two week intervals.
It is recommended to feed:
- chicken manure solution;
- mullein solution;
- urea;
- saltpeter;
- complex fertilizer.
nuances trim
It is believed that the columnar apple trees, if they are properly cared for, will grow in one stem, and pruning will not be required. This is not entirely true, since the side-shaped shoots of the columnar apple still provide.
Sometimes, it damaged growing point, resulting grow new shoots. Each itself decides how to form columnar apple.
Did you know? The more removed during pruning, the more actively the cropped fragment will grow. If you grab a branch more than half, it will give several powerful shoots, if it has a third cut off, there will be a lot of weak processes that are easy to remove.
Pruning apple trees are pruned in spring, early summer or autumn. The whole procedure takes a few years. 
Pruning apple trees, procedure and dates by year:
- 1 year. Remove all lateral shoots, shortened barrel.
- 2 year Pinch young shoots that have reached 30 cm. Do not touch the upper shoot with the growing point.
- 3 year. Shorten the upper shoot to 25 cm from the trunk, lateral to 40 cm.
- 4 year. Thin out the wrong side and last year's shoots.
- 5 year. Shorten the tree. Recommended height of 3 meters.
- The following years. Remove weak and dried shoots.
Important! Pruning a columnar apple stimulates the yield and growth of new branches.
How to prune an apple tree:
- We trimmed the branches should be left for two buds at the base. Trimming produce a very sharp clean shears at an angle of 45 degrees per centimeter from the kidney. It is appropriate to practice on unnecessary twigs.
- Crop preferably shoots under the age of one year.
- Actively growing unwanted shoots in the middle of the summer pinch.
- Fix the apical shoot, the rest to turn into links that will bear fruit.
Collapse of colonic plants
Due to the fibrous root system, the columnar apple trees, in addition to abundant watering, need protection from water evaporation from the soil. The solution can be mulching with humus or peat. The best option is grassing circle around-trunk. 
With this method, the space around the tree is sown with herbs or cereals. The vegetative cover closes the ground from the sun, and is not itself a competitor to the apple because of the shallow roots. However, it should be regularly thinned, if it is spicy herbs, and mowed, if the grass.
Crop normalization
From the huge number of ovaries, which produces a columnar apple, it is impossible to get a full harvest.
If the apple tree blossomed in the first year, the whole color needs to be removed: the tree is too weak, and it needs strength in order to adapt and grow strong. Next year, you can leave five of the most beautiful ovaries, in the third year - ten.
Near the columnar apple trees you can also plant compact columnar pears and plums, which do not take up much space in your garden.At the flowering stage, about half of the flower bouquets are removed, at the ovary stage - another half of the bouquets;
How to protect apple trees in winter
Before the onset of winter frosts should take care of protection. If the tree trunk was muted with straw, it should be removed, it will be warm in it not only the apple tree, but also the mice. The last is also satisfying. 
You can cover sawdust, spruce, and other available materials. The main thing is that they are dry. The best protection for the tree will be fallen snow, which should spud the apple tree.
Important! It should be understood that the main task in the event of protecting the columnar apple from frost is to prevent from getting wet and subsequent freezing of the roots, which are located quite close to the surface.
To protect the growing point from freezing, it is recommended to wrap it in several layers of cloth or paper.
To wind gusts did not break the plant, it is appropriate to tie it to a support.
Pros and cons of growing columnar apple trees
The advantages of columnar apple trees are undoubtedly:
- high yield;
- compactness;
- ease of harvest;
- the possibility of growing up to a dozen different varieties of apples on a plot that would take one ordinary apple tree;
- resistance to pests;
- decorative and original appearance.
The disadvantages include:
- the fragility of growth points;
- rather weak roots;
- timely, consistent and quite labor intensive care;
- the cost of seedlings.
There is no doubt that it is necessary to try, if you want to have at least one such apple tree in your garden. It is likely that the columnar apple, no matter how troublesome it was planting and caring for it, will generously repay care with its decorative look and generous harvest.
