How to Kill an Apple Tree - Inexpensively

[Cendra]

Hello,

I'm wondering if you can provide some guidance.

I purchased my first home last summer and inherited a mature (20 ish yr) apple tree which bore hard green, then red fruit. Lots of them. I never got to taste any since my neighbourhood is filled with squirrels and a couple of racoons that love to feast, so instead I ended up cleaning up after the vermin every other day. (We're talking about a dozen half-eaten apples per session.) Previous owners used to feed the squirrels, as well as a current neighbour two doors down, which doesn't help. By early September, before the apples had had a chance to fully mature, ALL had been dessicated. (Insert collective moan here.)

There's much too much access to this tree since my shed, a neighbour's shed and tree, one large offshoot of a Manitoba Maple and what looks like a utility line (cable?) are all within crawling or jumping vicinity for the squirrels. I considered having it cut, but the $550 price tag is too much for me to bear financially right now. So much to my chagrin, I'm considering killing it.

Any advice? I'm in the 5-6 Zone and the only living thing (besides grass) within a 15-foot distance is an old, non-fruit bearing plum tree.

Thanks
Sandra

[Newt]

Hi Cendra,

Welcome to The Helpful Gardener. I do understand your frustration but from the title of your post it sounds like you are asking for a way to kill the tree. Trees tend to die slowly over time and become unstable. In a wind or rain storm the tree could fall and cause harm to people or structures. Maybe you could get more then one estimate or see if a neighbor needs a tree removed or trimmed. Often a certified arborist will discount their fee if they have more then one tree to do in a neighborhood.

Newt

[Sweyn]

No need to spend silly money. You could always get a big saw and pruning clippers and prune the tree. Making it smaller would help and make it harder for the rodents.
Either that or get a Cat or a good pellet rifle!

[Cendra]

Thanks,
I'm not at the rifle stage (yet), but I do have a long pruner with a saw attachement. Might just do the trick.

Sandra

[pixelphoto]

try the free aol cds or go buy a few blank cds they are cheap. Hang them with fishing line or string in your tree. You must move them around. Also buy a rubber snake and move it around. Squirrels are fast learners so move things around alot so they don't become accustomed to them. A bb gun is nice and quiet and kills squirrels.

[Francis Henninger]

One of the stems of a thirty-year-old apple leans over the lawn of a neighbor who's severely allergic to bee stings. The fallen apples bring lots of bees. I decided to cut down that stem, leaving the rest of the tree, and girdled that stem spring 2008--a girdle 3-4 inches wide and 1/2 an inch deep, with one-inch saw cuts at the top and bottom of the girdle. Last summer that stem produced almost no fruit. But now it's heavy with apples starting to fall on that lawn. I just cut three saw cuts around the entire stem, an inch deep and four inches apart. Will that surely kill that stem? Do I need to employ poison on that one stem, trying to weaken it but not kill the rest of the tree? That stem is forty feet tall and its trunk a foot in diameter. This is my attempt to weaken that stem so that in a year or two it will be easier to handle when it is cut down. If poison is called for, what would you advise? Thank you very much for any help.