New house, new trees

[jemberelli]

We are in the process of buying a house and there is small section of land away from the house that I am thinking of turning into a mini orchard. I have attached photos and would appreciate any hints/tips on how to go about it - how many trees would be best for example. I wouldn't want to cram too many in or have it looking too sparse... The patio area and wall will be going.

Thanks in advance.

[lancashire lass]

If you go for semi-dwarf rather than normal sized trees, then you could squeeze a fair few in there, or maybe include some espalier trees (you grow them against a fence or wall and tie the branches to posts, trimming back any buds that grow outwards)

It's difficult to see from the photos of the dimensions but this site has some guidelines.

[jemberelli]

Thanks LL!

[Thomassio]

Lucky you! I have just done the same with my front garden, currently 3 apples and a plum but room for a couple more apples or pears and maybe a morello cherry.

Most common garden centre rootstocks seem to be mm106 which under ideal conditions should be reach about 12-15ft after 10 years. I guess it's a semi-vigorous. The other smaller options are most commonly m9 and m26 which again under ideal conditions should end up as 8-10ft and 6-8ft respectively. The smaller trees generally come to bear fruit a little earlier.

Im experimenting really, in the south-west we get a good bit of sun, but my front garden faces NE predominantly which is worst case for fruit trees! The plus side of this (other than a S facing back garden!) is that a spent a long time researching to get the best things to suit, hence the morello cherry being a likely next purchase. My plum is Czar and I have discovery, Laxtons fortune and a Jupiter Apple. I'm confident they will get enough sun to grow happily, just hope they get enough to bear a decent crop.

If you have a nice bit of space like that, have you thought about other fruits? Green gauge possibly? Damsons?

Let us know what you decide and good luck.

[jemberelli]

Thanks Thom, more great information! I plan to plant some soft fruits as well. Trees that are definitely in the list so far are the usual apple (cooker & eater), plum and pear and I do like the idea of a cherry. Not sure what else at the moment but will research well before I decide what to plant & where. Will keep you posted.

[Thomassio]

Very nice, look forward to seeing how it goes and what you decide! I've become a little obsessed and every time I see a public green or open space I think how great it would be if the council planted fruit trees for communal use! A little idealistic admittedly.

Two other things I thought of, one.....if you are only having one or two of each fruit, make sure to go for something self fertile or partially, avoid triploid unless you have at least two other pollinators. Also, usually at the start of feb, Aldi and Lidl usually do various fruit trees very very cheap (about a fiver). As much as I personally would rather support local nurseries and the quality is a little more reliable, if you are looking for a fair few trees then the price is tempting and possibly worth a punt. I think with a little research and maybe a few emails, rootstock can be found out and from what I have read (not experience) they are fairy reliable trees.

Oh and I meant m27 as the smallest, m26 are around 10ft I think!

Just a little more food for thought!

[fabindia]

Very nice, look forward to seeing how it goes and what you decide! I've become a little obsessed and every time I see a public green or open space I think how great it would be if the council planted fruit trees for communal use! A little idealistic admittedly.

I've often thought that too. Schools are another place, often fully fenced off now a days, where landed is wasted and a few fruit trees could easily be planted.

Also, usually at the start of feb, Aldi and Lidl usually do various fruit trees very very cheap (about a fiver)

I've bought these is the past and they are excellent value for money. What I would say though if you buy online from a specialist (I've used buckingham nurseries for over 25 years now- so that was even pre-online, when they sent a yearly catalogue) you can not only select you the variety of tree you want but you can often select which root stock you want it on.

I would add about the Aldi/Lidl trees, that they do take a few years before you get any fruit but with a nursery bought one I found you get a few apples after the first year in the soil.

[jemberelli]

I had a few Aldi/Lidl fruit trees at the last place we rented - a braeburn, a plum & a pear. They grew great guns and were just coming into fruit nicely when we left. Hope whoever was next in kept them and let them grow!

Thanks for all of the advice, much appreciated

[Mo]

I agree about needing to plant compatible varieties to get pollinated fruit. Lots of advice on the RHS site including a pollination chart

I'm not convinced about public orchards or veg planting. Good idea in theory but we had an orchard at school and we were always being told not to throw stones up to knock the apples down, wait till they were ripe and they would be picked for us. I can't remember ever having had any apple except sour maggoty windfalls. I can just imagine watching something ripening on a public plot, then finding it gone - whose is it- everybodies or nobodies?

But your own orchard is a joy. Plums in summer, apples and pears in autumn and stored for winter. Far tastier the shop rubbish.
When we started we thought we would cram in more varieties by having a row cordons as well as some big trees. And one variety was hard to find as a cordon but we tracked it down at a different nursery. Then found out why it wasn't suitable! Some varieties like Crispin & Bramley have 3 chromosomes instead of the usual pair. They grow big so need plenty of space, we ended up using a guy rope to straighten our cordon, it is now one of our tallest apple trees. The 3 chromosomes explain why you need and extra pollinator. 1 would pollinate the Bramley OK but the Bramley wouldn't pollinate it, so it would have no fruit.
Our other cordons soon became overgrown too - I think you need to know what you are doing to prune them properly and they never look like the diagrams in the book.

There are some very tasty early ripening cooking apples, but we found that by the time they were ripening we had lots of windfalls. We don't spray and the damaged fruit falls early. These are OK for cooking if you don't mind carving out the rubbish.

[KarenE]

I'd agree with the semi dwarf varieties if you can - we have an old cooker apple in our back and it is huge. Granted it is well over 100 years old but a few big varieties would take over your plot.

You could go for some heritage varieties of apples, pears, plums, damsons if you fancied hunting out something a bit special. Our old cooker is a heritage apple (Dummelow's seedling) and it is gorgeous.

If you aren't in a hurry to plant, garden centres will often sell off their stock at the end of the year so you may be able to pick up a bargain or two. Ours was selling off walnut trees a few years back and I wished I could've got one - fresh walnuts out of the shell are beautiful. Might be worth thinking of nuts as well as fruit?

I've also seen quite a few of those '2 strains on one tree' type trees for sale in the catalogues - might be worth thinking of you don't want too many trees but want the variety?

If you want to add soft fruits, you could maybe add some gooseberries and blueberries (need acidic soil) which you could grow into a standard. Watch out for raspberries as they can easily take over. You could even add a little pergola and grow grapes, passion or kiwi fruit over it

Depending on where you are in the country, maybe even add a peach or apricot tree as well. Again grown as an espalier or cordon, and home grown peaches are absolutely to die for. If you had a wall to reflect sun off and keep the warmth, you could cordon them along it.

The only other thing I would add is to maybe not plant too close to your fence as I see you're next to a road and could find yourself scrumped come harvest time!

[jemberelli]

Thanks all again

I had thought about nuts but not researched that as yet. Also, as far as heritage goes, I have already been looking into heritage Shropshire varieties but given how close we are going to be to the Welsh Marches I guess there will be a few others to investigate as well!

[lancashire lass]

I do like the idea of a cherry

The only problem with a cherry tree is that unless you grow it (they are self fertile so no need for a pollinating partner) under netting, you will never see a ripened cherry - birds especially blackbirds and pigeons will decimate it

I had thought about nuts but not researched that as yet.

With nut trees, expect to find squirrels (I feel like the bearer of bad news LOL) With hazel, you can severely chop it back every few years and use the branches (gardening projects such as bean poles etc or use thicker branches for maybe a rustic bench or similar) There is a small window about end of August/early September (where I live) when the nuts are just starting to be ready for harvesting .... that's when you get in there before the little rodents move in although they've probably already started taking them by then. I always fancied almond but they need similar conditions as peach/nectarine (makes sense really that they are closely related) - protect from frosts and possible peach curl. A walnut or chestnut are very big trees so probably not ideal for that bit of space you have.

[KarenE]

Good point LL about the nut trees, I figured they would probably not come in semi dwarf stock. Pity thought because fresh walnuts are lovely - there's a tree in our village somewhere and the birds drop the nuts on our patio trying to smash the shells, so we quite often get them. I wonder if nut trees take to being grafted onto semi-dwarf rootstock? Not that I could - never tried grafting anything! But there could be a whole new market opening up there for dwarf nut trees

Also spot on about cherries - my parents had a cherry tree for years in their garden, they never got a cherry off it.

If you're on the shropshire borders, that's damson country so you could do well with a damson there (great for gin, vinaigrettes and jams) but on the other hand, you may be able to pick up all the damsons you want around the place - when we were there last year, people were giving them away - so there may be no need to grow your own.

[Mo]

We have 3 cherry trees. Black, White and Morello. Black are sweetest - or would be. We never get any. White are fairly sweet if you let then ripen to a dark red. Some years there is still a crop there at the pale red stage which we can ripen indoors (cook & freeze any that already have damage). morello is sour, OH likes the jam, theory is that the birds leave it alone (not always). It seems to be short lived though, we've had 2 and the second one has had a lot of dead branches now.

[jemberelli]

Even more food for thought, thanks all!