Planting fruit trees

[fifi folle]

Hi folks
After more than a month in our new house we have finally purchased some pot grown fruit trees, woo hoo I have read the books on fruit trees am not clear on whether we should prune them back a bit when planting them, one suggests you should give the top of the plant a shock as well as the shock the root get by being planted, but other books don't mention that.

We have planted a Plum, Mirabelle de Nancy on pixy root stock, and a family apple tree with Golden Pearmain and Jonagold on MM106 (which I am treating like a u shaped cordon and growing it up the front wall (south facing, sheltered spot). Hubby dug a deep hole, removed the builders rubble, gave a good dressing of well rotted horse muck, and watered them in well.

Have we done the right thing? I am so much more confident with other plants but fruit trees are so much more expensive and long term!

Thanks for your thoughts and opinions!

[oldjerry]

Congrats on your purchases, I wouldn't prune now. For me it's always spring, you don't want a hard winter on top of pruning.For what it's worth,when you do prune,get the most expesive secateurs you can afford,and clean them with a cloth and a bit of Jeyes between each tree.The very best book for growing fruit is the little green RHS Guide , loads of diagrams etc. I've seen those family trees, but never grown one ( I've budded loads but someone else grew them on ) so I'd be interested to see how yours progresses.

[Green Aura]

We had a family cherry tree a few years ago. It produced nothing for 2-3 years then............one plum It got yoinked the following year. Our family apple was better though not prolific. We got rid of that too, in favour of separate trees.

But, despite our experiences, if space is restricted I'd still go a for a family one rather than none at all.

[fifi folle]

Thanks for the advice, we're planning another couple of individual apple trees but had this prime spot which I had thought of doing a couple of cordons and then of course saw the family tree and got sucked in. Well done on being ruthless Maggie, hopefully ours will bear fruit but if not, yoink, it'll be coming out and written up as an expensive mistake!
Oldjerry I will look for that book and thanks for the suggestion of Jeyes fluid, never thought of that!

[Millymollymandy]

Regular apple trees are usually pruned in the dormant season i.e. Dec to February, but espalier and cordon type ones need two prunings a year. The sumer pruning is just to tidy up whippy growth and the main pruning (forming the initial shape and encouraging fruiting spurs) is done in the dormant season.

Plums should be done from late spring to early summer, or if they are bearing fruit, after the fruit has been picked, but never during winter/early spring because of the risk of silver leaf disease getting into the wounds. I have a good RHS fruit book which gives me all the info I need and it's a complicated business and I still dig the book out every year before I start pruning anything just to check!

Anyway that's reminded me to prune my young plum trees that I planted early this year!

[Thomzo]

We had a family cherry tree a few years ago. It produced nothing for 2-3 years then............one plum It got yoinked the following year. Our family apple was better though not prolific. We got rid of that too, in favour of separate trees.

But, despite our experiences, if space is restricted I'd still go a for a family one rather than none at all.

Crikey, you don't believe in giving them a chance do you?

I'm glad you aren't in my garden. I planted a quince when I first moved in 8 years ago. It's only had two fruit on it (in 2 separate years) until this year. Now it's covered in fruit.

I planted a couple of hazel nuts about 6 years ago. Last year was the first harvest. This year they are both dripping in nuts.

I planted a family plum about 7 years ago. It's had a few fruit on each branch each year but this year was the best ever. Several pounds of plums.

There was an apple tree in the garden when I moved in. Had never fruited in all the years I've lived here, until this year. Absolutely covered in fruit.

Oh, and don't ever buy a citrus tree. A full grown lemon takes 2 years from flower to ripe fruit.

And as for the mulberry, I've got another 20 years to wait. Better get the kettle on.

Zoe

[Millymollymandy]

Regular apple trees are usually pruned in the dormant season i.e. Dec to February, but espalier and cordon type ones need two prunings a year. The sumer pruning is just to tidy up whippy growth and the main pruning (forming the initial shape and encouraging fruiting spurs) is done in the dormant season.

Having said that........ was just reading about pruning espalier/cordon apples in another book and it tells you to do it at different times of the year from what we'd followed religiously from the RHS book...... so the answer is.... I dunno! Well yes, just get one book and one only and stick with the instructions in that or your head will

[Millymollymandy]

We had a family cherry tree a few years ago. It produced nothing for 2-3 years then............one plum It got yoinked the following year. Our family apple was better though not prolific. We got rid of that too, in favour of separate trees.

But, despite our experiences, if space is restricted I'd still go a for a family one rather than none at all.

Crikey, you don't believe in giving them a chance do you?

I'm glad you aren't in my garden. I planted a quince when I first moved in 8 years ago. It's only had two fruit on it (in 2 separate years) until this year. Now it's covered in fruit.

I planted a couple of hazel nuts about 6 years ago. Last year was the first harvest. This year they are both dripping in nuts.

I planted a family plum about 7 years ago. It's had a few fruit on each branch each year but this year was the best ever. Several pounds of plums.

There was an apple tree in the garden when I moved in. Had never fruited in all the years I've lived here, until this year. Absolutely covered in fruit.

Oh, and don't ever buy a citrus tree. A full grown lemon takes 2 years from flower to ripe fruit.

And as for the mulberry, I've got another 20 years to wait. Better get the kettle on.

Zoe

So you're having a good fruit year then Zoe!!! (I didn't know that about the lemon though, that's rather interesting! )

[oldjerry]

A couple of years ago I did a fair bit of work in an old fruit garden the other side of Ludlow ,and the lady there had a quince that had taken ages to fruit.She picked them and left them to go really ripe,didn't fancy the smell myself.What d'you do with them?
Also I applaud you Zoe for planting a mulberry,truly the best fruit of all,they grow so old that quite a few have TPOs on them,and they seem to like quite mild conditions so you find them in strange places eg.in the car park behind the Job Centre in Slough (!) and on London Wall inside the square mile.Have you thought about getting some silk worms?

[Thomzo]

Mandy, it may just be in Swindon that lemons take two years to ripen. I suspect it's an awful lot quicker in a warmer climate.

OldJ, I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with the quinces. Probably give most of them away. They are too strongly flavoured for my taste but they do have lovely flowers. The two fruit I've had so far I've cut them up really small and put them into mincemeat for Christmas.

Sadly the mulberry is red not white so no silk from Swindon. I bought it from a nursery that was closing down and the land is now covered in housing. I only bought it because I felt sorry for it as it was virtually the last plant in the place and looked really lonely.

Zoe

[fifi folle]

Zoe I like your attitude to plants, I tend to take pity on reduced plants but never been so lucky with a tree!
Locally we have a couple of apple trees in the same wasteground as the raspberries, turns out that there were prefab houses there til the 70s and these are remnants of the prefab gardens! Talking to neighbours teaches you so many interesting things! Three days since planting and both trees are still alive, not even drooping, woo hoo!!!
On the topic of quince, I'll need to see if my parents still have a bush in their garden of the house we've been renting out for the past 17 years, it's kind of my influence for ishness, there are rasps, strawbs, apples, pears, plums, veg plot, greenhouse for tomatoes etc., I grew up growing all sorts of things in my 6' x 4' plot. And of course watching Mum cook and bake from scratch, sew, Dad build things etc etc. Lovely!