The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Fruit => Topic started by: northfifeduckling on February 22, 2009, 10:20:05 pm
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Just want to pour my heart out...I bought several trees again, pears, apples, and cherries to turn our lawn area into an orchard. Reading up on pollination groups in the Fruit Expert "Bible", the net, labels on the packaging, all seem to give different info on pollinators. I am getting more and more confused. On top of that, most of our trees came without a label on the trees at the time (and I'm notoriously bad with labelling any plants myself) and I don't remember what I've already planted in previous years. I think, I just give up trying and just wait what does well and enjoy the outcome...:&>
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Just the same as me - just shove em in and wait and see what happens! I've been told that if the flowers on apple trees are at the same time then they will be pollinated. But don't have any ideas on the others. I bought another two baby trees from Lidl's the other day, but not got them in yet - might do that tomorrow if it's fine.
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As far as your apples go, if you have or get a crab apple, you won't have to worry too much about your other apple trees as the crab will act a pollinator for them. The only difficulty you may have is if any of your trees are triploid varieties ie need two polinators. Bramley and Blenheim Orange are both triploids.
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We have one apple tree which never had any fruit, although it is 6 or 7 years old but plenty of blossom.I don't think it's an "exotic" variety. We do have a crab apple, bramleys and one which tastes like cox. I bought a Jonagold and Elstar to plant out now. I hope this does the trick...:&>
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i sent an email to the tree supplier telling them what i was after and asked them to suggest the best trees for my lcoation/situation and in a compatible pollination group (i believe the groups relate to when they flower so you need to have the same or adjoining number to ensure they overlap)
they give me a list of about 20, and i picked 10 and asked them if these would all work together - they confirmed it would and the order was placed
let the experts figure it out :-)
the only thing they did say was that gala apples might not do well in my location, but i love gala apples, so i told them i'd take that risk!!
i'm just hoping they've given me the right stuff to get a long season harvest :-)
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As far as your apples go, if you have or get a crab apple, you won't have to worry too much about your other apple trees as the crab will act a pollinator for them. The only difficulty you may have is if any of your trees are triploid varieties ie need two polinators. Bramley and Blenheim Orange are both triploids.
As of yesterday, I have taken your advice and bought a weeping crab apple - today it was put in the ground, is well watered in and looks quite settled. I have a bramley but also two other varieties, so will look forward to seeing what happens. I have to admit they are all supermarket cheapies!!! But have used these before when I built my last house and the budget was blown prior to landscaping! Thanks for the advice.
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Hi
I've just bought and planted 2 pear trees, 1 cherry and one apple tree all from Lidl's. The cherry is supposed to be self fertile and I already have apple trees. The label gave suitable varieties of pear to fertilise so I bought a second tree (not one of the ones suggested as they didn't have any in Lidl's) I wonder if I've done the right thing. If they don't fruit I won't know which is which as I'm not very good at labeling either. These trees were incredibly cheap (£3.99 each). Has anyone had any success with cheap fruit trees? I also put some chicken poo around the trees but having read this morning that It's very strong I'm going to have to go back into the garden and remove it. I hope I'm not too late.
Brenda
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i have the lidls tree (the big ones) and all of them have leaved but i think it to early in the life span for them to fruit yet, but they did set flowers and show willing but don't relly have much in the way of insect at the moment for themto pollentate althought the crab apple did have tiny fruits on them that was from aldi
Linz
chicken poo is high in nitragen and not good to come in contact withroots or stem as it can burn it, bst to put it in compost bin first then place on plat after its has broken down.
Linz
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We actually did have a few cherries on a new Lidl tree last year, and some tiny pears which fell off, they probably weren't pollinated then.Shame the wasps got to the cherries before me, they got through the netting against the birds...:&>
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when planting a tree, if it's bare rooted, you should use some peat substitute - like Coir - or something like John Innes #3 - don't use garden compost, or manure - it's a bit hot
also, for a young tree, i wouldn't worry too much about feeding it - you want it to get the roots established first
also, having jsut lost £200 of trees to rabbits, if you have any rabbits in your area make sure you protect the trees up to a height of 2'