Looks like your trees might be suffering from some bark disease. You need to remove the landscape rock from near the trunk out a couple feet, it could be trapping unneeded moisture too close to the trunk and be causing that bark splitting. Can you take a close up of the trunk on both trees and post the photos? The one leafless branch on the upper photo looks like it's had twig die back, trim it back to where the branch looks green which could be at the node where it grew from. What is your grow zone? How often do you water and fertilize? Evan

lol I washed the root system totally bare of any soil before I put it in my pool but I did get some strange looks from a neighbor :P; he probably thought it a bit strange seeing a guy sitting in his pool with a half dead tree for 20 minutes. Anyhow thank you both for your help. I'll take it out of the patio in the Summer and replant in a different spot in September. Laura, yes I was a bit unsure about putting it back into it's original pot but I finally decided to go this route because I want to make sure that the tree is free from any root rot fungus and doing well before I planted it in another area of my yard as I wasn't sure that the chlorine would work and I didn't want to contaminate another area of my yard potentially with root rot because I read somewhere that some strains of root rot spores can last up to 10-13 years... ugh. I plan on planting a lot more fruit trees in the future which is why I'm worried about further contamination. It is quite a relief to know that the massive amount of flowering is normal and another person has gone through this same struggle with their tree. I will definitely pinch off any fruit as you've advised. Thank you both so much. I'll try to keep this thread updated with info on the tree's health progression.

Vigorous shoots often have longer thorns, depending on the variety. It's probably just responding to the better growing environment. I'd leave them. You can trim off each thorn if you like.

Hello Everyone! Not sure if anyone is still following but I do have a concerning update on my little trees. So I actually found a 1 gallon version of the J.R. fertilizer and have been using that along with mixing some oscomote into the soil. I made sure to flush the trees a month in of using the fertilizer. to avoid root burn. The trees also get placed outside every morning in full sun now. Initially, I noticed green buds along the trees, but for some reason these have browned and now I have pretty progressive twig die back. Im really not sure how I can save them at this point. Let me know if you have any ideas! Thanks