Aldi Fruit Trees; £3:49 Today

DaftyDuck

I normally give an early "heads up" for the Aldi fruit trees... well, belatedly, they are on sale from today... I normally get early warning from a staff member, but I've moved. Oh, and Aldi's "new improved" website doesn't work on my ancient tablet... not that they've put the trees on, as far as I can see.

(Edit: Oh Yes They Have....... mind you, can anyone else find them by using the Aldi website itself, or am I just being thick??? )

Anyhow, from what I saw, the trees are not as good as previous years and, in particular, the grafting isn't as good. It used to be very good (was same supplier as supplied Notcutts, I believe). I guess different supplier, as prices haven't increased for a few years now.

They remain well-priced for what they are; they are grafted onto semi-dwarfing stock, so grow 1.2 to 1.8 metres (please check the labels if this matters to you; I'm not sure what the graftstocks are this year, but I was told two years ago). I've stocked several gardens with trees from Aldi over the past five or six years, and all have done well. From maybe fifty trees, I've had one death, and that might have been because I'd left that one in the bag for weeks, poor thing! All have fruited either in the first or the second year, and all have grown (roughly) as semi-dwarfing plants... some as dwarfing.

Sure, if you want high quality trees, these are not for you. Try Blackmoor Nursery or Keepers... or my new "local", Reads ... there are many other quality stockists

So Varieties instore are:

Pear:
Beurre
Butirra
Williams
Santa Maria

Apple:
Granny Smith
Gala
Golden Delicious

Plum:
Rythgestetter
Stanley

Sweet Cherry:
Hedelfinger
Burlat

Sour Cherry:
Oblacinska
Schattenmorelle

There's a raspberry Tulameen in the shops as well, but I refuse to count that as a tree.... really!

I would stress, if you want one single tree for your (front) garden, a specimen tree that will give you fifty years of pleasure, you might do well to look elsewhere. If, on the other hand, you want an orchard of pretty good trees at the bottom of your garden, or several for your allotment, I doubt you'll do better for cheaper from anywhere.

Having grown them for the past handful of years with success, even though these aren't quite as good, I did end up buying twenty of them :o:o

RAS

Useful bit of advice off another web-site


Sweet Cherries Hedelfinger Tree (self-sterile needs a pollinator - not burlat)
Sweet Cherries Burlat Fruit Tree (self-sterile needs a pollinator - not hedelfinger)

Reference Golden Delicious - it would gorw OK for DaftyDuck but not for those of us up here (ripens December ish, sort of). Also GD needs a lot of thinning, so keep it within reach.

The Pears (other than Williams) seem to be Italian varieties.

DaftyDuck

I would be surprised if Aldi are selling self-sterile trees... they are normally quite sensible...

Edit:
Hmmm seems very mixed views on the web, and none from what I'd call an authoritative source... Darn Foreign trees, coming over here, breeding with true British trees, not even having sensible names one can pronounce... Harumph...

Further edit...
Hedelfingen and Burlat: Do seem to be sterile... except the ones sold on Amazon :rotfl:;)

I am quite surprised... I think Aldi aren't doing as well on the gardening front as they were a few years back...

IceColdRum

I looked at the trees the other day and was about to put one of each of the cherries into my trolley when I thought I'd better Google them to check that they would pollinate each other after all you would think so wouldn't you? glad I did check to!

I suppose the chances are somebody else on the allotments might have a compatible cherry or one of the wild bird cherries nearby might of done the job but I'd rather go for certainties...

DaftyDuck

I do hope Aldi isn't losing the plot on gardening. They've had some good bargains in the past. But trees not as good, varieties more limited, and self infertile... Not a promising start to the year.

Dizzy_Ditzy

One of the trees I bought from Aldi a couple of years ago is a proper freak tree. It will only grow from the bottom and has been producing new leaves at completely the wrong time of year. Yet I can't bring myself to get rid of it yet, I keep hoping I'll get something from it other than a laugh at how daft it looks

My local Aldi had the trees in on Wednesday but I'd read that they were doing raspberry plants at the same time but there were none

forgotmyname

ALDI and LIDL trees appear to be mis-labelled. Cherry tree appears to be an ornamental one not an edible variety. The other cherry tree is undecided, I need to check the flower colours.

A few plot holders have had the same issue.

I bought a family pear tree from the garden centre and although it cost £40, i fruited the following year, with a bumper crop the year after and last year we had 15kg of pears off it.

DaftyDuck

Queen of cheap. Sounds like it's growing from below the graft, and the "tree" you bought may be dead... Mind you, who am I to suggest you kill anything daft!

Dizzy_Ditzy

That's exactly what it looks like DaftyDuck. I might cut it just above the graft and see what happens :cool:

DaftyDuck

q.o.c. You'll get an odd bush from the root stock, and not much else. But, who can kill a plant?

What was it meant to be? That'll be a clue as to what it will be. I have (somewhere) a list of rootstocks used by Aldi from ~ 3 years ago.

Dizzy_Ditzy

It was *supposed* to be a plum tree but annoyingly, the variety escapes me

It'll get chopped when I'm next there