Fruit trees

[steveg1966]

I am looking at buying some fruit trees apple,cherry and pear when is the best time to buy them and plant them 

[steveg1966]

[daveyboi]

The cheapest option is to buy bare root trees which are available from November to March roughly.

The nurseries start supplying when the weather is suitable to lift. Ordering early is meant to give the chance of better quality trees so they say.

Then at the end of Feb into March the cheap trees appear in the supermarkets etc. They are good trees but you are limited to variety and rootstock.

Then I did find my local nursery had trees in pots during the spring and summer and only a slightly higher price and those can be planted anytime.

[laurieuk]

As daveyboi says you can plant bare rooted trees now or get pot grown ones during the year. I much prefer bare rooted ones now, you can see what sort of root they have apart from being cheaper. the most important thing is to go to a good fruit nursery and get the correct root stock, buying cheap fruit trees can give you problems later. I bought my son a family apple tree that has 3 different varieties budded on to the stock but again you must get a good one to know they are all about the same strength  growth.

[Floyds]

I am looking at buying some fruit trees apple,cherry and pear when is the best time to buy them and plant them

You plant fruit trees when they are dormant during the winter months. You can order them at any time but have you thought about ordering English apples? They are now hard to find in the shops because most suppliers now grow the usual supermarket imports and if the small gardener doesn't grow them who will?
R V Roger has a good selection of heritage varieties and will talk to you about pollinators etc. My favourite eater is Kid's Orange Red but Lane's Prince Albert, Pitmaston Pineapple, Ashmeads' Kernal are all very tasty eaters and Grandpa Buxton is a superb cooker but won'r store as well as a Bramley. They do a good selection of Cherries and Pears too. Don't forget the good old Mulberry often overlooked but will give you nice juicy berries late in the year when all other soft fruit are just a memory on the taste buds. The only fruit to ripen after them are grapes.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I've had mixed results from supermarket trees. They've all done OK in the end, but some have had weak roots and took several years to get properly established. Others flourished from the word go. I haven't had good results from pot-grown trees.  I think you're better off getting bare-rooted nursery trees, you pay more, but it's worth it.

[cabbage.patch3]

Just got some big trees from Garden bargains.com quite cheap and well packaged.

[laurieuk]

If you do not know what root stock they  are grafted onto you can end up with huge trees that outgrow your garden or that you cannot reach to pick. I would always suggest you go  to a proper fruit nursery , you get what you pay for.

[Vinlander]

My favourite eater is Kid's Orange Red but Lane's Prince Albert, Pitmaston Pineapple, Ashmeads' Kernal are all very tasty eaters and Grandpa Buxton is a superb cooker but won'r store as well as a Bramley.

On the subject of great apples; as you imply, 99% of them are heritage varieties - simply because it takes decades to identify them - possibly longer now than ever with the amount of outright disinformation that breeders put out these days...

A couple I'd add to the list are Claygate Pearmain and William Crump - the latter is relatively unknown because it's taken 40 years for it to show its class purely by word of mouth - but the really interesting thing is that it is the only really delicious crisp red apple (I'm assuming from your list that you have no truck with the other half of the population that prefers apples that taste like apple pie - soft and sweet).

The best of the 'new' apples (still at least 40 years old) is Suntan.

I'd also recommend good old Sturmer Pippin as a great cropper producing hard sharp apples that still taste fresh and slightly crisp after months in store.

Cheers.

[Russell]

When you plant a fruit tree, you make an investment of your time work and money that will be with you for some years. It is worth thinking hard about your choice of variety, what is important to you e.g appearance and flavour of the fruit, appearance of the tree.
May I suggest you also consider the reliability of production. A tree that regularly produces every year come what weather may, is better than any tree that only fruits when it feels like it. In this connection I have found James Grieve apples to be unfailingly reliable heavy croppers. They used to be grown commercially until about 70 years ago, but I understand the marketing people did not like them because they bruised too easily.

[Floyds]

When you plant a fruit tree, you make an investment of your time work and money that will be with you for some years. It is worth thinking hard about your choice of variety, what is important to you e.g appearance and flavour of the fruit, appearance of the tree.
May I suggest you also consider the reliability of production. A tree that regularly produces every year come what weather may, is better than any tree that only fruits when it feels like it. In this connection I have found James Grieve apples to be unfailingly reliable heavy croppers. They used to be grown commercially until about 70 years ago, but I understand the marketing people did not like them because they bruised too easily.

I quite agree with everything you say, that is why it is advisable to go to a reputable nursery like RV Roger who specialise in fruit and will give you good advice as to what to grow and how to grow it. It's worth paying the bit extra because as you say it is a big investment in terms of time and you could waste years trying to grow something that you bought cheap but is either not suitable or lacks a suitable pollinator. Some apple trees only fruit every other year though but are still worth the effort in terms of flavour and keeping qualities.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Think about what sort of apples you like, and research varieties. My wife doesn't like James Grieve, for instance, because the fruit is a bit soft, but loves Egremont Russet, which is harder. If you plant more than one, look for varieties which ripen at different times.

[davholla]

When you plant a fruit tree, you make an investment of your time work and money that will be with you for some years. It is worth thinking hard about your choice of variety, what is important to you e.g appearance and flavour of the fruit, appearance of the tree.
May I suggest you also consider the reliability of production. A tree that regularly produces every year come what weather may, is better than any tree that only fruits when it feels like it. In this connection I have found James Grieve apples to be unfailingly reliable heavy croppers. They used to be grown commercially until about 70 years ago, but I understand the marketing people did not like them because they bruised too easily.

I read that it was because they bruised too easily on motorised transport before when it was horse pulled it was different matter.
Mine doesn't do very well but is in a bad position so I can't blame it (I don't have any other space) and it is quite young.

[Vinlander]

Think about what sort of apples you like, and research varieties. My wife doesn't like James Grieve, for instance, because the fruit is a bit soft, but loves Egremont Russet, which is harder. If you plant more than one, look for varieties which ripen at different times.

Definitely - but be aware that early varieties keep badly and tend to have an 'ordinary' flavour whereas the good keepers are mostly late and have more intense flavours. There are a few mid-season varieties worth growing (like Egremont Russet and Ribston Pippin) but keep them to a minimum.

Check out Bunyards list plus the recent recommendations above and go to an apple day to try as many as you can.

Don't plant what 'the masses' plant whatever you do - the masses prefer not to be shocked by intense flavours.

If you actually like apples (ruling out the hordes of people who would really prefer an apple pie) then a small crop of something you really like is worth more than any amount of stuff that's similar to what you can buy in the shops. Ordinary apples really aren't that expensive.

I have over 20 heritage varieties in my small back garden - all trained as cordons so I get a range of flavours that  - well, I won't say money can't buy them, but apart from the cost and P&P you would spend more time sourcing them than it takes me to maintain my trees in a year.

None of these varieties produces less than half as much as you would get from a (spits to left) Golden Delicious or (spits twice) Gala, and some like Sturmer Pippin produce just as much. Even D'arcy Spice has now caught up with the rest though it lagged for 2 or 3 years.

A huge crop can be pointless - even if you avoid early varieties and go for good keepers; by the time you eat them all they will be worse than the best apples in the shops (Sturmer excepted).

Cheers.

[Floyds]

Good post Vinlander...made my mouth water reading it. You can indeed have too many apples and this year I have invested in a small apple juicer that will allow me to waste less than I usually do.

If I try giving them away people turn their noses up either because they are not all regular sizes or they might be slightly discoloured or they just 'don't taste right' meaning that they are not what they are used to buying at the supermarket. I now compost any surplus and don't even try giving them away unless I know the person has imaginative taste buds.