We are lucky to have an apple tree in our garden, however when we moved into our house the previous occupants had knocked copper nails into the trunk and grown a huge amount of ivy all over the tree making it look a bit spooky, but worse was chocking the tree, also it created lots of mould and made the apples very small and very scabbing. We cleared the ivy which took ages and pulled the nails out and waited a few years, watching and waiting hoping the tree would revive and it did slowly each year the apples getting better. Last year we got enough good looking apples to make some cider it was a little sour but still nice considering the apples were still in recovery. This year we had a bumper crop of lovely looking apples that were crisp juicy and sweet.
