Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2021 21:29:56 GMT 1
would you recommend having in your garden?
As a novice gardener, I'm thinking i. walnut ii. cooking apple iii. pear iv. fig v. plum
but open to suggestions. Pays de la Loire, where I know they'll grow.
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Post by specsavers2 on Jul 12, 2021 21:35:16 GMT 1
Really depends on the size of the garden.
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Post by woolybanana on Jul 12, 2021 21:49:25 GMT 1
And the age of the planter.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2021 21:53:10 GMT 1
And the soil and drainage.
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Post by stevefrance64 on Jul 12, 2021 21:57:42 GMT 1
I suggest you plant the tree which bears the fruit you enjoy the most
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exile
Member
Massif Central
Posts: 2,690
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Post by exile on Jul 13, 2021 0:05:18 GMT 1
Apples and pears need pollinators; plums less so but they do benefit from having pollinators around, so unless your neighbours have plums, apples and pears, you will need to plant more than 1 tree of each. Then it starts to get a bit complicated. You need different varieties to get good pollination. you need to chose varieties that flower at the same time in spring. Finally I fear that by "cooking apple" you mean Bramley. Bramley is in a class of its own. Its blossom is sterile, so you will need 2 other trees to get good pollination all round. It tends to biannual cropping - huge crop one year and nothing the next. It grows a huge tree - even on dwarfing root stock.
Walnuts are easy to grow but again tend towards a huge tree.
Figs you may well need a south facing wall to get a good crop - we do and we are a lot further south; but higher up.
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Aardvark
Non-gamer
Living in soggy 22 and still wondering what's going on.
Posts: 2,172
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Post by Aardvark on Jul 13, 2021 8:36:56 GMT 1
I have been planting trees here when I can afford it and when feeling fit enough to dig the hole. I shouldn't have bothered. Even Cypress Leylandi that are known to be a fast growing cause of neighbour disputes grow very slowly here. I planted two about five years ago and they have only grown about 50cm taller since then. I have often stated that my garden is where plants come to die. The latest example is a pair of cherry trees that produced 2 or 3 cherries between them (that the birds get) each year and this year they are dead. The veggie patch will be abandoned back to grass for next year. The backbreaking process of planting and digging up the blighted spuds is no longer tolerable. I shall be putting the Kubota compact tractor and rotavator on the market in due course.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2021 9:07:16 GMT 1
Exile, you discerned correctly that I am a novice, and probably saved me some embarrassment at my local branch of Trees R Us, where the staff would probably have told me to leaf.
A friend has a fig tree in a sheltered garden so that should be okay. Apart from that - sounds like more thinking re the cooking apple tree. I wasn't necessarily thinking of Bramleys (though I love them) but a French variety; the size of the tree wouldn't be a problem, but the info on numbers is certainly something I hadn't known.
Are pepinistes generally helpful, in your experience? I'd probably avoid anything resembling a garden centre ...
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dilly
Member
near Limoges, Haute Vienne
Posts: 105
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Post by dilly on Jul 13, 2021 9:20:08 GMT 1
Belles de Boskoop are good cooking apples.
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Post by specsavers2 on Jul 13, 2021 9:28:43 GMT 1
You get the fruit trees on different root stocks. Garden centre should be able to give advice.
The nut can grow very big,fig lesser size.
fruit trees, great variety of them, look around some local gardens a and ask what the various are.
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acr
Member
In Manche(50).
Posts: 152
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Post by acr on Jul 13, 2021 10:48:31 GMT 1
Exile, you discerned correctly that I am a novice, and probably saved me some embarrassment at my local branch of Trees R Us, where the staff would probably have told me to leaf.
A friend has a fig tree in a sheltered garden so that should be okay. Apart from that - sounds like more thinking re the cooking apple tree. I wasn't necessarily thinking of Bramleys (though I love them) but a French variety; the size of the tree wouldn't be a problem, but the info on numbers is certainly something I hadn't known.
Are pepinistes generally helpful, in your experience? I'd probably avoid anything resembling a garden centre ...
Our local pepinerie is very good and they had a mate who specialises in trees so I got a couple of pears last year on a dwarfing rootstock - VERY important otherwise trees get massive and most of the ones in our local garden centre are not on dwarfing rootstocks.
Re apples, I would forget the concept of cooking apples altogether (I suspect they were a bug turned into a feature to sell apples that were too acid and needed loads of sugar, but branley lovers will shoot me down there) It depends what you like cooking. I find Canada Gris (looks a wee bit like a russet) is great for apple sauce and pie fillings as it goes to a puree pretty instantly and doesn't need added sugar. Reine de Reinette are a little bit like a Cox in that they keep their shape when cooking so are good for tarts especially tarte tatin (now I'm feeling hungry....)
Plums and greengages don't work well here at all (Manche) apart from Mirabelle. Figs great against a warm wall if planted in really crappy stone-filled soil.
Our apricot died last winter because of the endless cold
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acr
Member
In Manche(50).
Posts: 152
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Post by acr on Jul 13, 2021 12:21:09 GMT 1
Or do as we did and plant the fig in in the edge of the drive.Years ago I watched Monty making a really stony mess to plant a fig in and thought "I know where I have ground that's already like that" 
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Post by mangetout on Jul 13, 2021 12:41:35 GMT 1
I'm in maine et loire and I grow 2 sorts of plums, quetche and mirabelle. Both do very well. Apples, cherries, figs and pears ditto. I've had less success with peaches and nectarines but I think that's down to my gardens aspect because friends in the village have great success.
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Post by elsie on Jul 13, 2021 13:53:49 GMT 1
It depends how old you are! The best advice on when to plant trees is twenty years ago
If you want to eat the produce of the tree you need to check how long before they will start bearing fruit.
Trees usually take several years to establish properly. They may look OK in the first year but then they may die after a cold winter and a dry spring as they've not had time to put down enough roots. I've planted about forty trees in the last 20 years, all bought (or prizes) from garden centres. I've probably lost about 20% and those have which have died mostly been the larger trees which look good at the garden centre.
Based on personal experience, a walnut tree grown from a nut took 25 years to start to bear nuts.
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Nifty
Member
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Post by Nifty on Jul 13, 2021 13:56:21 GMT 1
perhaps it is worth bearing in mind that fruit trees can mean a lot of work and a lot of wasps and frelons in the autumn.
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