Some children just go their way whether you're firm or permissive. Liberty is the son you wanted to be a doctor but ended up making a fortune in trucking (maybe trash). Reliable cropper of decent fruit (some think more than decent) but let's not get to carried away with the virtue of its disease resistance- I still have to spray just as much, no fungicide needed in the mix though. Wish I liked the apple as much as some seem to. As far as managing its shape, I suppose you could spray it with Promalin or one of the growth regulators that encourage better lateral branching if it's worth it to you. Cutting back a third of new growth at branch tips may get you more secondaries but I suggest you choose a leader from the stub during summer growth. All I do is eliminate scaffolds that get beyond 1/2 the diameter of the trunk where they connect to it. Of course I recommend this with many varieties though it's not necessary with Goldrush, Empire, Braebern and other such spurry types. I follow up by doing the same kind of elimination of secondaries off the scaffolds. With secondaries and scaffolds, 1/3 diameter relationships create the most efficient and managable tree as a general rule. With Liberty I'm a bit more permissive. It's not a hard rule but when thinning is needed this is the wood I eliminate- along with blind wood (shoots that turn back towards the trunk). Of course this won't stop the scaffold branches of a Liberty that start with a proper angle from bowing up to near vertical as they get a few feet from the trunk. I guess you'd have to do a bunch of follow up tying or make some 4' spreaders to maintain a proper central leader. I just don't have that much energy to devote to it when that ugly tree may not make me proud but it does make plenty apples. I realize this is not written to be completely easy to understand, I just don't have the energy, but I hope it's of some value.

In the spring of 2012, I attempted to graft a Pear scion onto my apple tree using Winter Banana Apple as an inter stem. (All of he grafting i do is "Whip and Tongue" grafts wrapped in grafting tape. I then coat the wrapped union with grafting wax) The parent branch was a Winesap Apple branch with a grafted Winter Banana Apple scion from a few years before. (I actually have two of these paired branches.) I then attempted to graft two "Kieffer" Pear scions onto my two Winter Banana Apple inter stems. The "Kieffer" Pear scions started to grow, but died a few weeks later. This spring (2014) I attempted to graft this Apple / Pear union again using the same Winter Banana Apple inter stems. I had just enough branch on my Winter Banana branches to try this experiment one more time. This time around, I used "Sunrise Pear" scionwood. The grafting was a screaming success! (I had enough "Sunrise Pear" scionwood to graft two branches onto my apple tree, and two more onto an ornamental pear. All four pear grafts were a success!) I have no idea why this experiment failed in 2012 and was a success in 2014. I do not know if it had to do with the pear variety used, or if it had to do with environmental circumstances. I will re-post in 2015 with an update. There are a few different treads on this subject so I will be re-posting on those threats also. Below are pictures taken on 07/27/2014.

Hi Brandon, yes you're right about the Freyburg which I'll have to replace this year. Annoying but hopefully my other 5 (cider) apple trees I bought are going to produce the correct fruit. I'll assume that the parent tree has taken over the grafts and produced fruit similar to what I was trying to replace (once again, annoying). Interesting to note that both grafts pictured in photo 4 have the same fruit and so both appear to have "failed". Perhaps it is because the scion wood was taken from the "Freyburg" tree before it had fruited for the first time? Possibly if my original Freyburg tree was taken over by the rootstock then maybe it is not a suitable source for taking scion wood from? It would be interesting to actually know the reason why this has happened and I'm hopeful that the other grafts of the Cox's will be successful. Dave

The way the stock on your specimen looks pinched at it enters the ground indicates deformity due to careless container culture. There's a few things I have to say on this one. First, Nope to the lifted comment. Not a chance from a tree that can put on an inch of caliper a year. If it were the case, every single Metasequoia I've ever seen has the same issue...they grow so quickly, in such a non-radial manner, you're going to have idiosyncrasies in how the trunk appears. I've seen a few trees over the years where the scion grew much faster than the stock, or vice versa. a few. I saw one once that had an interstock that grew faster than either scion or stock. By a few, I don't suppose I've seen more than one every few years. They exist. What is the eventual outcome, due to the unequal growth rate? Eventual failure, I'm sure, but in how many years, I just don't know. Every so often, a variant of this question appears on various threads here. Usually in the guise of picture heavy threads of specimens that grow lopsided on one side of the graft or another. Years ago, in my college years (yes, I can remember them), there was a discussion re: graft incompatibility with one of the professors. Long story short, it's complicated, and hard to predict. The specific question was re: caragana and the weeping varieties, what I recall was that he didn't think there was any truly compatible combination of stock, interstock, and scion. But most would last about 20 years before petering out. I've seen orchard rows where in a row or block, there's be one or a few individuals exhibiting vigorous stock growth relative to the scion, or vice versa. Blocks planted at a rate of 1400 hundred trees an acre, and there may be one or a couple, all otherwise identical, except for a meagre handful of rogue individuals. No way to predict, and really nothing to do except let it live it's course.