Planting Fruit Trees - Advice Please

Fluffysheep38

I want to plant some bare rooted fruit trees. My soil is terrible, stony and, well completely unsuitable, I know this.

The plan is to dig off the top layer of grass, then dig out the unsuitable soil and replace with something else.

Firstly how deep do I need to dig out the old soil and what should I ideally replace it with.

Also, does anyone know of any good apple/pear trees which would produce a good crop of sweet eating fruit (rather than cookers!). I have been reading up on it, but it gets confusing with how many trees of each and pollinating etc. etc.

Could I also plant some bulbs in between the trees?

Thank you for any help and advice

ukbill69

I would replace with a mix of top soil/compost and manure, this should give the tree a good start to life.

Fluffysheep38

Thanks Bill, appreciate your answer. Any idea of how deep I should go?

ukbill69

I would say about 1.5 feet will give this a great start, all depending on the size of pot you have. Im no expert here, but always worked when Ive done bushes and trees.

Mojisola

Good advice from bill. As your soil is bad, I would make the hole at least 60cm wide and up to 1m deep - depends how strong you're feeling! If your soil is very compacted there is a risk of the roots staying in the good compost and of water not draining away from the hole so after you've dug the hole, use a garden fork to make holes in the sides and bottom. If the soil is dry, fill the hole with water and allow to drain away before planting.

Believe it or not, there is a lot of controversy as to whether you should use a stake or not when planting apple trees. If you google it, you can read up and decide for yourself. It will depend a bit on what rootstock the tree you buy is grafted onto and how windy your garden is.

If you're using a stake, put it in. Spread the tree roots out and backfill the hole, firming as you go. The tree should be planted so that it's at the same level in the soil as when it was growing. You should see a change of colour on the trunk to show where that was. If you can keep the area around the trunk clear of any other vegetation for the first couple of years, the tree will get established much better. Bulbs probably won't take too much from the tree so you could plant them up. Gardening is all about compromises!

Keep the young tree well watered in its first few years and a general fertilizer applied in the Spring will help. If you can put a layer of mulch on each year, even better.

If you're in a town, I wouldn't worry too much about pollination. As long as the bees have other apples or crabapple trees in the surrounding area, they'll pollinate alright.

Varieties are a very individual thing. What one person loves, another will hate. You might be able to find a group holding an Apple Day in the next week or so where you can taste some for yourself.

Fluffysheep38

Thanks Mojisola, thats a lot of good advice.

Can I ask, how far apart should the trees be planted. I intend to put a few in!!

Thanks

jsh99

You could always give these people a ring... they have the national fruit collection......

Fruit Advice Line
Need advice on why your fruit tree stopped growing, how to prune a fruit tree or ways of preventing pests from eating your fruit crop? Now’s your chance to consult an expert from The National Fruit Collection for free. You can call on 01795 536250 (normal call rates) any Friday afternoon between 2-4.30pm. The line will be manned by fruit enthusiasts who will give free advice on growing, planting and pests. When calling you also get the chance to free membership of the Friends of the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale!
For any queries please contact 01795 536250 or email: [EMAIL="sallyroger@brogdalecollections.co.uk"]enquiries@brogdalecollections.co.uk[/EMAIL].

Mojisola

Fluffysheep38 wrote: »

Thanks Mojisola, thats a lot of good advice.

Can I ask, how far apart should the trees be planted. I intend to put a few in!!

Piece of string question, I'm afraid! It depends on what rootstock you choose. The different rootstocks affect the height of the tree and the larger the tree, the wider the spacing needed.

There's a good diagram on this page - https://www.blackmoor.co.uk/index.php?cPath=1&osCsid=feo0ah69d7b2o40rse2h9o7ko5 - showing the different rootstocks.

valk_scot

Several trees? How big a garden do you have, and how many apples do you want?

My back garden is 45' x 20' and we inherited three apple trees and a pear tree when we moved in. One apple tree gives me about 300-400 good sized apples every year, and it's only about 15' tall. No2 tree gives me another 100 or so, No3 about 50. I can hardly give apples away fast enough at this time of year and if it wasn't for a friend owning a herd of goats that like apples I'd have had to put a lot of them into the compost. None of the above varieties store and they are pretty boring for cooking. I did make 40 jars of apple jelly for various school sales and dried a few pounds of them.

The pear tree (some sort of Conference) gives me 30-40 pears in a poor year and at least a hundred in a good one. It's only about eight feet high. It's a poor year this year so I won't have to find out if goats like pears too.

By contrast I planted a family apple tree on my allotment, after my then 7 year old son spotted it for 50p in the Woolworths Reduced to Clear bin. It's about 5' high and has Russets, Golden Delicious and some sort of Cox on the three grafts. (I'm guessing the varieties but these are close.) I get about 20-30 apples of each variety and they're nice apples. That one tree would have given me more than enough apples tbh, even with four of us in the family.

So when you're thinking of "several" apple trees, ask yourself what you're going to do with several hundred apples.

Fluffysheep38

Thanks Val!

I was aiming at the smaller trees, like the ones you plant in pots, but can't afford all the pots so was going to put them in the ground instead, possibly putting up wire to train them into a "wall" type hedge thingy (something similar to that on Gardeners Programme last week lol).

I forget people are not mind readers :rotfl:

RAS

Ok

You probably want to grow cordons, which means you can grow 6-8 trees in a line over about 16 foot. One shows pruning an inclined cordon

http://www.gardenaction.co.uk/fruit_...r_2e_apple.asp


Advice on cordons from someone who made a few mistakes growing espaliers.

1. If you ground is crap, you can compensate by using a fairly vigourous rootstock rather than M9 which has poor roots and will be too weak on your ground,
2. Make sure that you do NOT select trees that are called tip bearers. You want spur bearers.
3. Generally avoid triploids although Bramley Clone 20 is OK.

And as general advice, select a good number of varieties that ripen in the winter and spring, like Rosemary Russet, Spartan, other wise you have hundreds of apples ripe at the same time, like I have right now and have to give them all away.