Apple tree training

[Woody girl]

Warning, bit of a preamble, bear with it! A long while back, I planted what was supposed to be a small apple tree in my garden.it was supposed to be on dwarfing rootstock.
Sadly, it grew through the pot, into the ground, and so I got a saw under the pot and chopped it down as I couldn't possibly move it .
Anyway, a rather large tree has grown from the stem over the years. It's now grown so tall that I decided two years ago to prune it rather drastically. The result was even more growth, but no apples, so I left it this year, and I now have its best ever crop so far.
Trouble is, it's now turbo charged the growth and got very tall, so I wanted to bring the branches down to a more manageable height, by using weights on the ends of the branches to train them lower.
I can't find the ones I needed on the tinternet, I wanted the ones that I used to use when I worked at an orchard. No sign of them anywhere. The orchard has sadly, long since gone , and is now a housing estate, so no chance of asking them for their supplier.
Anyway, I suddenly had a brainwave. After recycling a milk bottle into an apple picker, my brain came up with this idea.
Small drink bottles, filled with water and tied to the ends of the branches with nettle, or cotton string. It works a treat, and as I'm picking the bottles up from the local litter bins, completely free!
Sorry, not the best of photos due to not being able to see the screen properly in bright sunlight, but you can zoom in on the end of the branches and see what ive done.

 

[Falstaff]

What a great idea! I'm trying to train a pear and an apple into two free standing fans, that one day will turn into arches, so I might be using this trick myself.

 

[Woody girl]

What a great idea! I'm trying to train a pear and an apple into two free standing fans, that one day will turn into arches, so I might be using this trick myself.

You are welcome. I did hope it would be a useful idea for those who might need it. Money is tight nowadays, so using free stuff is great.
I'm not a lover of using plastic in the garden, and it does look a bit messy, but they won't be on the tree forever, and can be recycled easily afterwards.
I don't drink those sort of drinks, but foraging through the local litter bins once or twice a week has netted me a fair few. I'm now carrying a bag along with my foraging kit for them when I go out.
It will take a while to do the whole tree, but I'm hoping that I can move them around once a branch takes on the shape I want, and do a bit of the tree at a time, adding to another branch whenever I can get a bottle.
I'm getting a professional orchard pruner this winter to help me shape it in the best way for maximum apple production and reduce some of the explosive growth. Its obviously a happy tree!
Also thinking of grafting a wonderful eating apple to it this winter. I've seen one I like on a friend's tree, and I have permission to take a small graft when she prunes her tree.
Exciting!
Am I the only one who apologises to my apple tree for cutting off branches??????