Container grown fruit trees

[Falkirk Bairn]

Hi all,

Been trying to read up on the various root tree stock sizes and their suitability for growing in containers and trying to take into account my Central Scotland location but my head is becoming pickled with some of the conflicting articles I've been reading, so......I'm looking to you all for some advice, please.

I would like 1 pear and 1 dessert apple tree (possibly 2) to grow in containers, I'm located in Central Scotland and the area of garden that I wish to have these trees is sheltered and a sun trap (we do get some sun here, lol). Maximum height for trees should be 2m. A neighbour has fruit trees but they were there when he moved in and he doesn't know much about them when I asked.

Can you advise on rootstock most suitable for container (they can be well watered and fed)?

Can you advice on variety, we tend to eat golden delicious and pink lady apples so one similar in taste to one of these would be ideal, just not sure on our climate. Pears we eat whatever variety the greengrocer has?

Also wondered about container size, some sites say to plant straight into big pot, others say to re-pot?

Sorry for so many questions but I would love to be ordering a couple of trees in the next couple of days.

TIA

[FB.]

I would go for apple rootstock M26 and pear rootstock Quince C.

Pears generally don't like cold and wet. Their self-fertility is variable, but generally they really benefit from a pollination partner of a different variety. Even self-fertile varieties of pear (or apple) tend to produce more, larger and better quality fruit when cross-pollinated by a different variety.

Golden Delicious and Pink Lady are unlikely to ripen properly in most parts of the UK. Only the most Southern or SouthEastern/East Anglian regions of the UK would be suitable. Besides; they're not regarded as being particularly resistant to disease (which isn't a problem for the commercial growers who spray).

I would suggest the pears "Conference" or "Hessle", but I would consider any pear to be something of a gamble in Scotland due to risk of wet-weather diseases or frost damage to the blossom.

As for apples: there are plenty which are tolerant of cooler, duller and wetter climates. In particular, look for varieties with scab and canker resistance - and frost tolerance.
I'd also recommend early-ripening and mid-season ripening fruits, to be sure that they have enough time to ripen properly. Late-ripening types (such as Golden Delicious or Pink Lady) may be small, green, sharp and tasteless without lots of autumn sun and heat.

I'd suggest looking at:
Discovery
Falstaff
Grenadier
Egremont Russet
Greensleeves
Katy
Reverend Wilks
Scrumptious

Ideally someone nearer to you will be able to comment on what they're growing; nothing beats the experience of the locals when it comes to choosing suitable plants to grow.

[Falkirk Bairn]

Thanks very much FB. Do you have any advice about the containers, should I put them straight into a large pot or should I keep re-potting for a few years?

TY

[FB.]

Size of container probably doesn't matter while they're small but whatever size container you use, they'll need repotting every few years.

One benefit of a larger container would be better availability of water; potted plants often go short of water (with fruit quality and plant health suffering) because their owners don't appreciate how quickly pots drain and dry out compared to a plant in the ground.

You'll notice when you come to buy your "trees" that M26 and Quince rootstock are claimed to be a little more vigorous than you require (usually apple M27 is recommended for pots). However, a pot will "dwarf" more vigorous roots, while those more vigorous roots will also cope better with a bit of damage or neglect.

Over-vigorous trees (but not weak sickly trees!) can have their new shoots pruned during July to keep them small and fruitful.

Winter prune to invigorate if the tree needs to grow faster.

[Falkirk Bairn]

thank you so much for sharing your wealth of wisdom with me, it's very much appreciated

Have decided to get Katy and Discovery apple trees and will try a Conference pear. Having a look through suppliers the now to see which one I'll order from.

Hubby will be getting trailed to our local garden centre when he comes home from work so I can get containers and stakes. Am I correct in thinking that a mixture of John Innes no. 3 and soil with some added bone meal is best used ? Also wondering what you would advise for a regular feed and would a bark mulch be ok?

[FB.]

Katy ripens only a week or two after Discovery and neither of them keep for more than a couple of weeks. Take care not to have an overstock of apples which you can't use before they go off.

Since Katy and Discovery have the same parent; Worcester Pearmain, so they are siblings and they will not be as effective at pollinating each other due to inbreeding.

Sadly, modern breeders keep using the same varieties over and over again and inbreeding/incompatibility is becoming a problem with the narrowed gene pool.
Related varieties often don't cross pollinate as well as unrelated varieties.

Of the above, ancestry links are:

Worcester Pearmain is a parent of:
Discovery, Katy

Worcester Pearmain is a grandparent of;
Scrumptious

Discovery is a parent of:
Scrumptious

James Grieve is a parent of:
Falstaff, Greensleeves, Katy.

Golden Delicious is a parent of:
Falstaff, Greensleeves, Scrumptious.


Inbreeding....inbreeding...inbreeding....just like the poor dogs bred for shows.

Of the above, I would suggest Discovery and Falstaff as a good pollination pairing, which also ripen at different times.

[Falkirk Bairn]

thanks once again for keeping right on this very steep learning curve, lol.

[FB.]

Those which I listed are varieties which are usually reasonably easy to find and generally less troublesome than average.

However, if a variety (the easy-to-find, or the "best" ones) is too widely planted in a certain region or country, it gradually tends to cause the diseases in that area to evolve better ways to attack it; nature and diseases don't like to miss an opportunity.
Bramley, a hundred years ago, was very resistant to disease. But now there are so many Bramleys around the UK that some diseases make a good living by being specialised to attack Bramley, even if they so mutated that they can't attack anything else!
"Up North", James Grieve has a reputation for becoming easily diseased, but in my area it is not much planted and is virtually immune to all the local strains of diseases. Unfortunately, James Grieve doesn't much like the heat and sun down here, so it doesn't grow as well unless planted in partial shade in a cool spot.

The disease problem is made worse because many varieties are getting closely related to each other and what disease-resistance genes they do have, are gradually being overrun as the diseases slowly get better at attacking them. That's why quite a few Cox offspring tend to easily suffer from canker; the gene pool of resistance genes is getting quite small and the diseases have already defeated many of those resistance genes in Cox.

For that reason, the rarer varieties tend to show much higher disease resistance. Rare varieties tend to be those with some "issues" - such as unattractive fruit, small fruit, biennial bearing, erratic cropping, too vigorous, too slow growing, only able to grow in specific parts of the UK.........the list of problems goes on.

So I prefer the rare varieties which aren't known to be closely related to "modern" varieties. I find the ancient ones to be very tough and disease resistant in difficult conditions, but, as I mentioned; many of them have a quirk which you have to live with.

[Falkirk Bairn]

Trees (2yr old bare root), stakes and rootgrow just been delivered. Hubby's gonnae have to take me to garden centre when he comes in for couple of containers, compost and nitrogen based fertiliser (any recommendations for fertiliser).