Now that winter is here, bare-root trees can be planted. These are grown in fields in the soil and dug after leaf fall, before being sent, carefully wrapped to avoid the roots drying out, to gardeners. Not only are they cheaper, they are also usually better quality than pot-grown trees. Most garden centres sell only potted trees, with bare-rooted ones mostly coming from fruit nurseries.
Apples, pears and plums are deservedly the most popular garden fruits, with apples being especially productive. Many apple trees – Bramleys, for example – grow too large for most gardens, but their zeal can be curbed by buying them on rootstocks that stunt this growth. The rootstocks are “sticks” with roots to which nurseries graft a piece of the named apple – “Gala”, for example – called a scion. As the graft grows, it knits its wood with the rootstock wood. The rootstock topgrowth is then cut off, leaving the scion to grow and make a tree.
Historically, a rootstock called MM106 has been used, which is semi-vigorous, making large bushes to 4m or so – too large for most gardens, but with strong roots that need no staking. The “MM” stands for Malling and Merton after the research stations that selected these rootstocks. Later ones – M26, M9 and M27, small bush, very small bush and tiny trees, respectively – are from East Malling in Kent. M26 is probably the most useful, but M9 has its uses in very small gardens (if staked), while M27 is so weak that it needs to be mollycoddled for good results.
Popular supermarket apples are not the best-suited to garden growth, although “Gala” is worth considering in dry districts where scab disease is not too severe. The similar “Red Falstaff” and “Limelight” are better suited to other garden conditions.
People who favour “Cox’s Orange Pippin”-type apples are spoilt for choice, with “Kidd’s Orange Red” and “Sunset” recommended.
Local apple and orchard groups can often supply trees bred in their respective regions and therefore adapted to the conditions of the district – ‘George Cave’, for example, is a tasty early apple from Essex, while “Hessle” is a robust Yorkshire pear.
Unfortunately, very dwarfing rootstocks are not available for other fruit, but pears on the rootstock “Quince C” are kept to 3m and, unlike apples, lend themselves to restrictive pruning. They should be pruned in late summer to make single-stemmed trees called “cordons” or ladder-like forms called “espaliers”, which make best use of fences and walls and suit smaller gardens.
Plums and cherries have a different flowering habit that suits restricted forms less well, though they can be grown with their branches trained into a fan shape on wires attached to taller walls and fences.
Cherries are so attractive to birds that it is hard to grow them in gardens without careful netting, but plums and damsons make productive trees suited to larger gardens.
All fruit trees, even ones that are self-pollinating, give better crops if cross-pollinated with a different tree of the same species that flowers at the same time. Suppliers and the RHS publish flowering time guides. Happily, urban gardeners will often have suitable pollen donors in nearby gardens, but if not a potted tree, kept small by the restriction of the pot, can be grown as a compact source of pollen.
More than one apple or pear can be grafted to their respective rootstocks to make “family trees”, typically with three varieties per tree. These are a great way to have a fruit collection. One cultivar can often overwhelm the others, but alert gardeners can stop this by selective pruning.
