Orchards (eBook)

Chapter Two

Choose Your Trees

There are a number of important things you need to think about when deciding what trees to plant in your orchard:

Let’s look at each consideration in turn.

A wide range of possibilities

Pip fruit

Most orchardists will want apples to be included in the mix. They are the easiest of the tree fruits to grow and perfect for a beginner to start with. There are apples that will grow everywhere in Britain from Sussex to Stornoway, from Lerwick (with a bit of help) to Land’s End. Most of the apples we eat nowadays have a long history of breeding and selection from the wild apples of Kazakhstan or China and bear little resemblance to the sour, wild crabs sometimes found in British woodlands. These selected fruits were gradually introduced into Europe over the centuries. You can still find the Pomme d’Api, believed to have been in cultivation since Roman times, and all our modern varieties have been produced from older selections.

Having said that, sometimes apples on trees sprouted from pips discarded from a railway carriage can be rather good! Now and then, a new apple is ‘discovered’ in this way.

Pears are almost as popular as apples and hardier than people think. They are also extremely long-lived as fruit trees, with a long and fascinating history as part of the diet of these islands. The ‘crab’ form of wild pear is called – tellingly – a choker. Since earliest times, the range and types of pears in Britain have been local, eclectic and changeable, many home-bred, but from early European scions.

Stone fruit

The wild cherry, or gean, is a mighty tree when grown, too big for most gardens. It bears fabulous blossom, as well as edible fruit that are variable in colour, size and sweetness. They are often more white than red. Old photographs show the very tall ladders needed to harvest these fruit. Modern, cultivated cherries have been bred and selected all around the world, especially Canada. On dwarfing rootstocks, they are easier to pick (no ladders or aptly named ‘cherry pickers’) and to keep protected from the large number of birds and other cherry gourmands who compete with the orchard owner for a taste.

Plums, damsons and gages are the other orchard mainstays, with plums probably being most people’s ‘must-have’. They have their origins in several wild species of Prunus, but not species native to Britain. Bullace (Prunus insititia) and sloe (Prunus spinosa) are our natives, the fruit of which bears no resemblance to the large, luscious garden plum, but any ‘wild’ plums found growing are probably descended from garden escapes. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale in Kent holds a wide range of plums – sweet, acid, intense, aromatic, marble-sized to monstrous and any colour from greenish-yellow to darkest purple – but, for various reasons, surprisingly few make it into the garden. It’s hard not to want them all!

Damsons were once named Damascenes. They take their name from Damascus in Syria, where they have been cultivated for millennia. In Westmorland, north-west England, the damsons are propagated by root suckers, which makes them clones of introductions made many centuries ago! The small, musky, purple fruit are valued in preserve-making, but are very difficult to resist straight from the tree. If you have an awkward or shady spot, plant a damson there and it will probably thrive.

Gages, which originated in Iran, are not always green, but they are always of a choice flavour and much sought after. They are perceived as being more difficult than plums and damsons, partly because some are unable to self-pollinate. This is not true of them all, however, and if you have room for a gage or two, you will be the envy of the neighbourhood. Greengages are the sweetest of fruits and hide in amongst the foliage. Some gardeners are not aware of the bounty lurking above their heads!

Mirabelles, or cherry-plums, are also stone fruit, just like plums, but resemble large cherries in shape and size. The fruit can be red or yellow or anything in-between, but are always sweet and very moreish. They are widely grown as smaller orchard trees in mainland Europe, especially France, and some choice cultivars can be obtained. The best known is probably the Mirabelle de Nancy. Here, you will sometimes come across cherry-plums in very old orchards, where they were once used as a rootstock on which to graft plums. Over the centuries, the plum trees have died, but the cherry-plum rootstock has taken over, sometimes providing a more plentiful crop than the plum did and should definitely be more widely appreciated. They can also be planted as part of a hedging scheme or as garden ornamentals, for they flower profusely very early in the year. Then in late July, one will find find pavements and lawns littered with delicious little fruit that their owners have disregarded, unaware of their edibility. They are tough little trees that thrive in challenging conditions, but, sadly, in hedges most of the fruiting wood is hacked away in the annual ‘prune’.

Right place, right variety?

The choice in most garden centres, unfortunately, is usually limited to a few English or Europe-bred varieties. Most of us have only the rather...