Kittie: Your tree looks a little overly vigorous in the top. But First cut out any limbs that are in your way, crossing, or otherwise out of place. This would include the branch you mentioned. Either cut them out completely or cut them back to a less vigorous lateral shoot that is headed in the direction you want a limb to be. Then cut back the most vigorous shoots in the top of the tree to less vigorous side shoots or remove some of them entirely. Do all of this cutting in August only if you live in CA. If you live elsewhere, I would do it after you harvest this yrs crop. In CA you can get serious disease problems by pruning apricot any time but late summer. Each yr after this continue to cut out the most vigorous shoots in the top of the tree each summer. Basically the first rule in pruning a tree like this is to cut out any branch you don't like and do it every yr. If you do that the tree will not get too big and you won't be removing too much at once. The Fruitnut

Here are a few photos of some of the damaged trees. The first is a sweet cherry, which looks terrible on one side and not quite so bad on the other (see the 2 views below). We cleaned up all of the lifted bark and took off the girdled branch (farthest to the left in the first photo) and hope that the tree will heal. I'm planning to look for the tree wound dressing suggested by Konrad to treat the damaged areas. As you can see, the plum tree below is a mess. It was pretty much girdled, so we cut it off just below the top of the mouse guard. Would it be better to just leave it like that and rely on the new growth that will hopefully develop, or would it be preferable to graft onto it later in the spring? I saved some scion wood from it in case we should try grafting. We did the same thing with another plum and a cherry and we're also wondering about the apricot shown below. The peach tree below is one of the lesser damaged trees, but there are extensive patches of removed bark. The picture shows the tree after we trimmed the damaged areas. That is all we did on this one. Does anyone have an opinion on its chances of survival? Would it be safer to cut if off below all of the damage? This last picture is an apricot. On this one we thought that we would try just cutting off the central leader and leave the 3 scaffold branches, but I realize that this might be risky. The damage on the trunk below those branches does not go all the way around, but it is somewhat more than 50%. There is a patch of removed bark on either side of the trunk with thinner strips of intact bark between them just below the branches. Would it be wiser to cut it off below all of the damage? Thanks for the help so far.

Pix?

If it doesn't improve within a couple weeks, I would replant it on a raised bed, protected from wind somewhat or keep it in a pot. Add something to the dirt that promotes aeration and drainage. Expect the tree to take a couple weeks to recover after transplanting. I use a mix created by Al here on the forums, its works great and its almost impossible to over water using the stuff on a raised bed or potted. Click the link at the bottom of the page for info on Al's mix. If you need to find the stuff, I have gave you some ideas below. 1. aged pine bark - home depot sells soil conditioner which is this exact stuff. Make sure it says on bag aged bark whatever you buy. Regular Pine fines bark will work if you can't find this. 2. Chicken or Turkey grit- available in small bags at tractor supply company. If you get a big bag look for it at chick feed store. Which ever kind you get, make sure its crushed granite and bigger than BB size as in the BB of a BB gun. 3. A Turface substitute for small batches is Aquatic plant soil found at Home Depot or Schultz soil conditioner found at Ace Hardware. Here is a link that might be useful: Al's gritty mix discussion