It depends whether you cut through the cambium layer. If you're not sure you could try sealing the cut with grafting paint or whatever.

Either way, I think you had better start grovelling BIG TIME.

Thanks Liatris

Just visited my local nursery & they said the same about the cambium layer.

The link goes to a pic of the carnage & it is of its "good" side. Id say its doomed, since the cut is quite deep.

So I have patched it with some special tape, and will watch it to see if the leaves droop - indicating that the tree's circulation is damaged - so far the leaves look ok.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:2115987}}

OH Thats look bad, more than grovell I think
Gee I wish you lots of luck Garlic Bred, and I hope it heals.

MM.

Hi GB,
If we don't hear from you again,we'll say goodbye then.Give us a sign from the otherside. Good luck. Peter r

Ummmmmmm. now did you do the washing up after cooking dinner tonight and have you got the washing ready to do tomorrow and when do you vaccuum. ?
Why you ask, well it is either that or move out with the whipper snipper !!!!

Marion

Man, you are DEAD MEAT!!!!

The ability to bite one's tongue doesn't extend THAT far!

OUCH!!! If I were you, I'd get hold of a pair of leather puttees - fast.

One of the great joys of life is eating a RIPE apricot picked fresh off the tree and warmed by the sun. Something you just can't buy.

You might consider being twice as apologetic and buy two replacements. I planted two apricots in the one hole - pruning off the resulting "inside" growth right back to the trunk. Can't remember the varieties but one ripens around Christmas and the other at the end of January. It looks like, and takes up as much room as, one tree. One is much more vigorous than the other so that one gets a lighter pruning.

Clear the grass from around the base of the tree/s and mulch. Then you won't have to use dangerous weapons.

Ive been a bit snowed under with work lately, so have only just read some of the recent posts. Thanks for all your advice and comments.

Also a great place for relationship advice it seems...

Well, I put off telling the wife - was waiting for the right moment - but she found the damage before I could confess! She thought that I had no Idea what I had done & was fuming about my apparent ignorance ... Daggers of ice hailed from the sky ...

Anyway it has a happy ending - Amazingly, the tree still lives today! & we had a couple of very hot (38+) days shortly afterwards - despite all the ice. So Im figuring it will live.

I put some grafting tape - like a bandage - around the wound.

Glad to hear it, What Luck!!!

MM.

So pleased to learn that both of you have survived.

You can remove the top and bottom of a plastic drink bottle, cut down the side and slip it around the trunk to act as a guard.

Give the tree a bit of extra love and attention - water, light applications of fertiliser, perhaps prune now - to encourage the bark to grow back and join up.

This can be a long process. Have had the experience of an offspring remove a vertical strip of bark down the trunk of a young tree and it took a few years to finally close over.

Which raises another question. If we brought them into the world, why can't we despatch them from it?