Ken Muir's minarette fruit trees

[AntC]

I fail to understand the search facility on this forum, so apologies if this has been covered elsewhere.

Have any of you grown these fruit trees - especially the self fertile ones. The photos on the website show trees with masses of fruit - is this realistically achievable?

[nickdub]

If you tell us which varieties of fruit you are interested in we can probably help you - most varieties of apple for example, are self-sterile to a greater or lesser extent

[AntC]

I haven't chosen any varieties yet, it was just the experience any of you had had with the trees. Thinking of trying an apple, pear and Victoria plum.

[nickdub]

I haven't chosen any varieties yet, it was just the experience any of you had had with the trees. Thinking of trying an apple, pear and Victoria plum.

The Victoria plum will be fine, its self fertile - the apple and the pear may never fruit at all, if you don't take pollination problems into account.

[Snadger]

I bought patio pear,plum and cherry last year. They put on a bit of growth but no sign of fruit. Hoping for some fruit this coming year.

[nickdub]

I bought patio pear,plum and cherry last year. They put on a bit of growth but no sign of fruit. Hoping for some fruit this coming year.

do you know what varieties you have ?

[Snadger]

do you know what varieties you have ?

Pear is Conference, Plum is Black Amber and Cherry is Sylvia.

[veggiechicken]

OrangePippin has a good page on Minarette etc fruit trees .https://www.orangepippintrees.co.uk/...te-fruit-trees

[nickdub]

Pear is Conference, Plum is Black Amber and Cherry is Sylvia.

the Conference will be fine by it self obviously, its one of the few which will crop even if only poorly pollinated - I'm guessing the cherries will be OK too as the more modern ones seem be self fertile too - the older varieties are another story and a bit like apples do need a pollen partner.

[toomanytommytoes]

I've also been wondering what the yield off these minarette/supercolumn trees is like. Chris Bowers says one apple tree will produce 30 or more fruit.

[ameno]

I've also been wondering what the yield off these minarette/supercolumn trees is like. Chris Bowers says one apple tree will produce 30 or more fruit.

Personally, I wouldn't trust anything Chris Bowers says...

That said, 30 apples probably is reasonable for an established miniature tree in the ground (you'll get fewer in pots).

[toomanytommytoes]

Personally, I wouldn't trust anything Chris Bowers says...

Having read some reviews, me neither! Looks like they got caught red handed posting fake reviews on one site

[veggiechicken]

https://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gr...ons_93121.html

More reviews from the Vine!

[toomanytommytoes]

Read that thread just before you posted! It's on the first page of Google results for 'chris bowers fruit'

[ameno]

Having read some reviews, me neither! Looks like they got caught red handed posting fake reviews on one site

I ordered two trees from them this spring (foolishly, I didn't read the reviews beforehand). They were meant to be two years old, but both were tiny. I also had a grapevine in the same order, which was meant to be potted, but was bare root. Most damningly, though, the plum tree I ordered was very clearly an ungrafted rootstock plum (no graft union, the bark pattern and leaf size and shape were clearly not that of Prunus domestica), not the actual grafted variety I ordered.

I got my money back in the end, but they were very reluctant about it, trying to lie their way out of it, and were very rude the whole way.