Good idea if you ask me. I pruned some of the fruit buds clear off on my Honeycrisp tree to help prevent overcropping and biennialism. Also I just plucked dozens and dozens of flowers from my new everbearing strawberry patch to maximize growth of the leaves. Anything you can do to prevent fruiting (actually, seed production) will help your plants to produce more vegetation.

Annas are self-pollinating, but they do say that they have more fruit if they are within 50 feet of a few other types of apple trees. Our neighbors have a dozen Annas, some of which are around 50 feet away. Do you get later fruit, too? This post was edited by GreenDreamhome on Wed, Jun 25, 14 at 9:24

All very beautiful Donna. My aphrodite is blooming now also. I haven't heard from my apple blossom this year. I think it's on vacation or something. Louana

Besides being beautiful, Appleblossom is one of the hardier large flowering hybrids. I put 3 Appleblossoms to test just recently. They are established and potted ones. I left them outside beside the garage door under the eaves (frost free). Temps have been going down to the "teens" and they were not even bothered by it. The bulbs were still nice and firm. They potting soil was very dry before I did this. Spring will give me results of the test's effect on the flowers if there are any. This is one of the Appleblossoms that I put to test. This is how it looks like blooming in it's own time in May (60-70s) in my garden.