Pears

Millymollymandy · Wed Apr 26, 2006 6:44 am

I have three pear trees in the orchard which are really manky, probably never been pruned and even more covered in canker than the apples. Last year we had not a single flower on them and we'd already mentally consigned them to firewood. So they have not been pruned as we thought they were really beyond help.

Guess what - two of the three trees are covered with blossom!

wulf · Post: # 18344Post **wulf** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 7:39 am

Interesting - our pear tree (well, the neighbour's tree which overhangs the back corner of our garden) also failed to do anything last year (which we blamed on squirrels eating the buds) but is profusely festooned with blossom at the moment.

Wulf

Millymollymandy · Wed Apr 26, 2006 11:15 am

Wow! I don't have anything like that! I have also noticed that the cherries (including the ornamental ones) being like that too, the one that didn't have much fruit last year is covered in blossom now, whilst the ones that were loaded with fruit have hardly any blossom. Most important, I have lots of apple blossom just waiting to open up so I'm happy, having harvested about 5 apples last year from 12 trees!!!

albert onglebod · Thu Apr 27, 2006 7:01 pm

if there is a late frost,it will kill the blossom buds and the tree may take too long to flower again.We had a plum tree that this happened to several times.There would be loads of blossom each spring,then wam,the frost would get it and we'd have maybe 3 plums if the tree managed to blossom again.Then some years the frosts didnt occur after the blossom and we got massive amounts of plums.

alcina · Post: # 18511Post **alcina** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 7:55 pm

Everything is blossoming like mad in London this week. Cherries, apples, plums and many others that I can't recognise! It's like all the trees were hunkering down out of the cold, windy weather and bam...suddenly it's warm and only breezy and they've all gone beserk! My plum and almond have both blossomed profusely and the cherry is starting to get buds (I've only just got the cherry so I don't know when it's normal to get flowers!). Fingers crossed that the late arrival of Spring means that we only have to worry about freak late frosts this year!

Alcina