I am well aware of what modern day experts recommend. I disagree. I have experimented for 40 years on every kind of tree in my yard. An open wound, like all unsealed drying wood, cracks. Water enters the cracks along with debris and causes rot. Bugs find the moist rotting environment enjoyable and take up residence. Next thing you know you have one of those trees that are all hollow in the heart. The experts say the tree shuts the wound off and everything's Ok. Well if you don't care how long the tree's life span is and it just has to live as long as you do, Ok, otherwise, it's crap! Just like collar cuts. Under the right conditions, with a branch at a good horizontal angle, they're great, but not every situation is ideal and when you have three or four branches intersecting a crotch to remove it's going to take close cuts and sculpting with chisels to get cuts that will drain and heal and not rot. Keep in mind, these new methods are designed for todays professionals who must temper perfection with time is money. Sterilization takes time. Reworking the cut with hand tools takes time. Periodically inspecting and renovating the wound takes time. Properly treating the wound takes time and an improperly dressed wound is worse than no dressing at all. If you can come up with a reasonable compromise then you have saved a lot of time, therefore, money. None of this applies to the home orchardist. He can do a little at a time and do it right. Remember, these same experts are the ones who prune maples in March along our highways and byways, instead of waiting until just after bud break which would promote an almost immediate callus to form, and no bleeding. Lastly, fruit trees seem to be about the slowest to heal and the most prone to fungal diseases, so any precaution, no matter how time consuming is warranted. Methods like clean, close cut and wound dressing were developed over thousands of years by the people who developed most of our fruit and nut cultivars from wild, inedible plants, the Chinese and the Italians. Even if my own experiments hadn't convinced me, I'd still ere in favor of the ancients!

Wow yewmonger, I've never seen yews that big. I didn't even know they could grow that tall. I had some really old ones in front of my house when I moved in over 15 years ago. I always sorta kept them pruned down to about 3.5 feet but they increased in girth every year. I started hacking them back two years ago so that I could get between them and the house. Then I decided to take them out because they were > 50 years old and growing in prime sunny location (what a waste, one of the few conifers (only?) that can tolerate shade and they were taking up full sunshine space. So I cut them back to 1 foot stumps and left them that way all winter until I could find someone who would dig the roots out. I was sad to kill healthy plants but they really were ugly and a maintenance nightmare. I'm telling you all this to say that, yes, some green sprigs appeared here and there this spring but I can't imagine how long out would take for them to fill in (probably never). So, as you're doing, don't take off too much. If you can wait, take some off and see how they do. Prune more next spring. Just my two cents. LOL ken_adrian about leaving the stumps at two feet so you can dig them out when you're tired of looking at them. That made me laugh.

Hard to be sure? It might be difficult to guess, there are just SO many different varieties out there...and if its a seedling even harder to know. The fruit itself looks similar to my Keitt...but the pretty colors on your new leaves and its growth habit is not that of a Keitt tree, here's a picture of my Keitt from 2012. Looks similar to yours, but again I'm sure there are many fruits that look similar visually... If there's fiber, there's a pretty good chance its a Tommy Atkins, but I believe there's a lot more red on a TA.. Below on the bottom of the screen is a link from TFN a picture of a Kent, the fruit looks similar to yours as well... I hope its fiberless, sweet and delicious, that's the important thing!! I have to say your tree is looking amazing!! Great comeback, you did a great job. BTW, home grown Tommy Atkins taste a lot better than the ones from the store which are picked when they are green...there was a large tree in my old neighborhood that produced some of the best tasting TA I've ever tasted! Tree ripened TA taste much better...not in my top 5 but way better than the store bought ones any day! Here is a link that might be useful: Kent mango...

Thanks for that Jalcon Have seen this post before I think with a lot of these Situations the Choice of to Prune or not to Prune is in the hands of the Tree owner whether Purist ~ None Purist or Experimentalist I myself with this Tree have decided to remove the bottom 2 Branches before the Tree becomes too Branch Wound Envisaging what the Tree would look like with just a single Curved Trunk I would consider this the best Option,(In My Opinion as a Comparitive Beginner to many on the Gardenweb) Best wishes Stephen,Cheshire,UK