Growing fruit trees in pots

Mercedes · Post by **Mercedes** » 01 Jun 2015, 08:07

We don't have any regular sized fruit trees in our garden as it's quite small and the flowers on the few trees we do have are quickly eaten by all the local pigeons.

Yesterday we were in our local garden centre and we saw a small fig tree. The woman at the nursery said it would grow fine in a pot, which is something we'd never thought of before. So we ended up buying 4 pots and one fig tree so now need to find 3 more miniature fruit trees or fruit bushes that would grow well in pots.

Just wondered if anyone has any experience of growing fruit in pots and if it's worth trying.

albertajune · Post by **albertajune** » 01 Jun 2015, 14:11

I have a fig tree in a large pot and another in the ground. Figs do need restricted root space in order to fruit, so a pot is perfect. I only have 2, as I ordered one from a catalogue and it didn't arrive because of being out of stock. I bought another from the garden centre and then the other one came with no charge rather than have it sent back. Both fruit well. The one in the ground has it's hole lined with bricks and rubble to confine the roots.
When buying other fruit trees for pots, do make sure that they are of dwarf stock. These are bred especially for containers or confined space. My sister has a lovely dual apple in a tub which fruits very well.
Good luck Lynn and research before buying if you don't get any recommendations.

Post by Mo » 01 Jun 2015, 16:02

albertajune wrote:Good luck Lynn and research before buying if you don't get any recommendations.

Yes, you need to make sure that they will be pollinated. If there are fruit trees in the next garden they might do the job, and some are self fertile (Conference pear is said to be OK but better with a pollinator). The varieties need to have flowering times that overlap (and ideally fruits that ripen at different times for continuous eating). Some (triploid) varieties like Bramley and Crispin will not pollinate others (they have an extra chromosome) - but they grow too big for a pot and shouldn't be sold as dwarf. We hunted and found a Crispin on dwarfing rootstock but it soon outgrew the line of cordons we had planted it in.

Mercedes · Post by **Mercedes** » 02 Jun 2015, 12:25

Thanks for the helpful replies :-D

We went to our local garden centre yesterday and had a look around but all of their trees were pretty large, apart from the fig ones. So I guess I'm going to have to find one online, I quite fancy a little Victoria plum as I had one in my old house and it was beautiful :-D