anyone got plums, apples or gages in east lothian?

[bensmum]

I want to grow some fanned fruit trees against west and south facing fences. I did approach a well known fruit tree supplier for advice and was advised against plums. Of course this is not the advice I wanted to hear so I am now looking for people to tell me they have had great success with fruit in my area

If anyone has had success with any varieties( preferably victoria lol) I would love to hear about it. I may, of course, just do what I usually do and chose to believe whatever I want to believe in the hopes it will all work out.

[Ananke]

There are lots of people on my site with apple and plum trees, including myself (mine are only 1yr old so can't use them as an example, although I did get about a dozen apples) Their trees produce an abundance of fruit so i'm not sure why you were advised against plums.

[FB.]

It is possible to grow almost any kind of fruit in almost any part of the UK - but the best choices for each location will tend to be old, forgotten varieties which our ancestors found did well in a particular location.
Certain varieties of fruit do best in certain locations; for example; some apples prefer heavy acidic soil while others prefer dry alkaline soil. A good example is Fiesta (Red Pippin) - it hates the wet, somewhat acid soils such as in Scotland - and can be a sickly and stunted tree. However, when grown on a relatively dry soil with high pH (assuming that its rootstock can also cope with the conditions), Fiesta is vigorous and virtually immune to all apple problems.

In other words; choose wisely and you can have abundant quanitites of clean and healthy fruit - but choose badly and you'll wish you'd never bothered.

As a rule, the most common varieties of fruit tree (e.g. Cox, Bramley, Victoria) tend to get more than their fair share of problems - not least because there are now lots of old diseased trees of those varieties where the diseases have evolved to specialise in attacking them. The disease spores then blow on the wind for many miles to settle on other trees of the same variety.
A variety which is not much grown tends to show much stronger disease resistance due to no similar trees in the area with diseases which have foudn ways past its resistance. (e.g. disease strains from Cox are not usually able to attack a rarer variety such as Edward VII).

[FB.]

I should have added:

Disease/pest resistance and the vigour of any particular variety will be at its strongest when the variety is being grown in a soil type and climate which it prefers.

For example:
James Grieve prefers a cool, low-rainfall climate and a neutral to slightly acid soil.
Cox's prefers a warm, low-rainfall climate and a neutral to slightly alkaline soil.
Grenadier prefers a mild wet climate and slightly acid soil.

....and it's not just the variety grafted which matters; choice of rootstock can be crucial to success in difficult growing conditions.

MM106 rootstock prefers a cool climate (but dislikes hard winters) and a soil which has good moisture retention. It does very poorly in hot, dry soils which dry quickly.

Even the depth and fertility of the soil can make a mockery of what "the books" say.
A deep, fertile soil which is neither too wet nor too dry and has a neutral-to-slightly-acid pH will grow a larger and healthier tree than a shallow, chalky, strongly alkaline soil which holds almost no water.

[kfan]

I have seen lots and lots of (old) vicoria plum around here that had massive yields. They are a bit more tart but still very nice. My neighbours grow apples and cherries successfully (apples trained against a south facing wall) and other neighbours also have a fig tree. Just have not seen any pears around.

So Id say: go with your gut!

[realfood]

Plums do well all over Scotland, Victoria especially. James Grieve does better in the East than the West.
Have a look in the gardens of National Trust properties. Several of them have orchards which produce lots of fruit. Kelly Castle in Fife is one.

[bensmum]

Thanks for the replies...I think I should hedge my bets and try a couple of different varieties and see how they fare...now to persuade hubby we need a crab apple as well