HI J, I have 3 peach trees. All have fruited in 2-3 years. I did not really amend the soil except for adding some top soil to fill the holes because I did not have enough native soil to put back. In my areas, rocks grow best. Rocks and boulders are everywhere when you dig a hole. I've fertilized the tree a bit in the spring each of the following years. I don't want to fertilize too much. If I were you, I'd get rid of competing weed around each tree and mulch it. Your apple tree looks stunted. A 3 yrs old apple tree should not look like that even in your type of soil. Not sure why, but you may want to consider relocating it. The soil in my yard is also land fill. The trees still grow decently. As for apple fruiting, I have apple trees that have fruited in 2nd and 3rd year on semi-dwarf rootstocks. My Honey Crisp is on an unknown rootstock. It must be at least 6 years old now but still have not fruited. My guess is it's on a standard rootstock which will take much longer. Make sure you have another variety of apple that blooms about the same time to cross pollinate. If there are crab apple trees in your neighborhood, you'd be all set.

Butchering a fruit tree should be done in winter while the tree is dormant, as I advised in my initial post. In the spring after the tree has expended it's stored energy into pushing out new leaves puts a lot of stress on the tree. It wants to start collecting the expended nutrients, sugars, and energy from the new leaves but once those leaves are cut off, it has to start over. That tree did, as you said, push out new growth again so the butcher job didn't kill it right away. Looking at the trees in the background and how some seem to still be dormant and others are just starting to push out new growth, I wouldn't discount the tree yet. I think its great you only like a natural growing tree. In my small yard, even a fruit tree on dwarfing rootstock will grow to 15' which is too large for my needs. I keep my trees manageable for what I want. The local avocado and apple growers have been switching from growing standard height trees to growing shorter trees with more trees in a spacing. Lines of trees that were on 20' centers have been cut to the trunk and another tree planted in between to create 10' centers and then the trees are kept to the 10-15' range for ease of picking. The trees are more productive per acre, and there is much less danger in picking them because the picker isn't 25 feet up in the air. I'd like to note that many of use here advised the OP to first thin the branches out to rejuvenate the tree and re-establish the apple growing wood. The option of topping the tree down to the trunk was extreme and not what I would do first, however it was an option should that fit the OPs needs. The question was if the trees were worth saving and if they could be salvaged. I answered with a resounding yes to both and stand by my answer. The trees can absolutely be rejuvenated and for you suggest giving up on that old of a tree because its old doesn't make any sense to me. We have many 100+ year old apple trees in my local mountains still producing fruit.

Well, I did get rid of all the vines, hopefully it wont scald like rhizo said, we will have to see... But I do know that the vines were killing it. Between the wild grapes and whatever the other vines were, maybe Virginia creeper? (not sure) and the bigger woody vine and all the under growth surrounding it they wasn't helping things... I also chopped down two dead trees that were blocking a lot of sun from hitting it, hopefully that at least makes it come back to a little more healthier state. Funny that you mention the Wildlife because I just said that to my wife yesterday, even if we don't get any fruit from the tree, at least the wild life will have something to eat, Along with all our berries and nuts (Walnuts and Chestnuts) and pears....lol Anyhow, its nice to have the tree there and id love to see it do well even if it doesn't produce more than what it is doing now... its been on the property for god know how long and it would be a shame to let it go to pot if it can be helped. Thanks guys!

Well, much to my surprise, some of the grafts that I put on last year grew fruit spurs, and flowered this spring. Some others grew longer, with no spurs. Maybe those were what the buds were intended for all along, and they just now came out. Anyways, a few flowers on last year's grafts is interesting. This year's grafts have started to really take off. I think I did a much better job of it this year than last. I have a few more scions on the way, so I hope to get those on this weekend, and harvest a few apples in a few years. This winter, I'll try to bring this tree back down to size. BTW - it must've overproduced year before last, then been stunted last year. This year, it is totally covered in flowers. If those turn to apples, I'll have to do a lot of thinning. Fun stuff - thanks for the help everyone.