apples/pears/plums border advice & opinions needed

[yummersetter]

That's fine as long as you don't want large fruit - as soon as you have a good crop of hand-filling apples or pears, the weight will bring the branches down, possibly all the way to the ground like a weeping willow - you might be able to find my Kidds Orange Red photos on here. Its not a bad thing from a fruit eaters point of view as it'll expose more of the branch to the light and encourage flower buds to form for the following year. I'd say for a champagne flute shape you'll need cherries, cherry plums or crab apples.

[yummersetter]

Here's my cherry plum 'Ruby' on Pixy, I think, planted two years ago. Its flowered but not fruited so I don't know if that will alter the shape.

[seneca196]

Interesting. I would like to go for something similar, but a bit wider each side. I'm looking into possible forms for the trees and the possibility of creating my own to suit the conditions. Thing is I'm new to fruit trees and plan on learning over the winter months when they will be left alone, but in situ. I should have a better idea of what to do in spring. Not being fully confident of what I'll be doing (hate to make a bad cut and spoil it, especially as I can't undo it and try again) I'd rather some formative shaping was done beforehand by someone who knew what they were doing. I'll save the whips for when it's not so important and no big loss if it goes wrong. These will be my biggest, most prominent trees, so better I tinker with someone else's work. I couldn't find your kids orange picture. Any chance of a link. It's on my shortlist of 4 trees - james grieve, kids orange red, unsure?, unsure?

Anyone have any other pics of suitable forms for my situation? don't mind a doodle, or a link to some shape suggestions for apple trees. I like the spindle form in 2d (nothing going over into the neighbours) , but with a 1.5m stem. I'm in danger of producing some freak trees!

[yummersetter]

This Kidd's Orange Red tree is on M25 and was planted 20 years ago. For about 5 years the branches shot upwards then as the weight of fruit increased it began to bring them down to earth. I love it, and its a delight to pick.



The other picture shows a young tree of the same variety, about five years old

[seneca196]

great looking trees! The first looks fantastic, but the bottom 2m would get little if any direct sunlight in situation. The second tree is also very handsome and perhaps more suited to my conditions. I could well imagine that reaching the sunlit part above the fence (trees canopy.) Is that too m25? a half standard? Afraid m25 is far too vigorous and would need more space than I could give it. I'm still a little doubtful of my 4 mm106 in the 9m border. Some of the spacing mentioned in books is HUGE!

[FB.]

Afraid m25 is far too vigorous and would need more space than I could give it. I'm still a little doubtful of my 4 mm106 in the 9m border. Some of the spacing mentioned in books is HUGE!

Is M25 too vigorous?

It's taken five years for yummersetter's tree to get to the size in the bottom picture, and it's taken twenty years to get to the size in the top picture.

How long do you want to wait for them to get up to size?

If there's plenty of soil moisture (as often happens in shady spots) it's possible that M25 will grow strongly. However, not all varieties grow at the same rate and it's quite possible for a MM106 tree to be much larger than a M25 tree.
Bramley, Blenheim, Gascoyne, Gravenstein, Hambledon and certain others on MM106 would make a tree as large as - if not larger than - most other varieties on M25 as long as the soil didn't spend long periods dry in summer (MM106 doesn't like drought-prone soils as mentioned on my MM111/M25 topic a few minutes ago).
I grafted a Hambledon onto M26 and in one season it grew as large as I'd expect from an average variety on MM111, making 4-5ft of growth from just a piece of graftwood about two inches long!

[yummersetter]

I was waiting for the rain to stop to measure the trunk height on the younger tree . . . which is on MM106 and about 5ft of clear stem - still pouring down here! But it had its early years being very neglected in a weed patch closely planted with other trees, so may be smaller than one from a nursery that had been cared for after replanting. It's growing fifteen ft from medium sized trees lining a ditch to the west so is in shade in the late afternoon.

[seneca196]

Five years is ok for me. Obviously, anything I can do to speed things up I'll try. Presumably, fruiting will be some time coming. I plan to get some smaller cordons for another area, they will be on a smaller, but more precocious rootstock. I'm trying to stagger fruit production over a few rootstocks and not wait for everything to be ready at once.

Looking at the shape of the cherry plum got me thinking. I wonder if it's possible to try something similar with a plum, might work for a bare area I have at the back of another border.