Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi everyone
Just new to this and fairly new to gardening also. Have recently had my garden landscaped and have an area which is south facing around 15ft x 20ft sloping downhill, which I would love to plant some fruit trees easy to grow and the kids will love, was just going to plant them and turf around them?? Noticed that Tesco,Lidl and even In-store are selling fruit trees etc. are these okay to buy am I best to go to Dobbies or reputable garden centre what are the difference, What do you all think any tips or ideas would be greatly appreciated just have this space at the side of the garden which I dont know what to do with and really dont have a lot of time for a huge project as much as I would love to grow more veg etc. Thankyou x

If you don't mind going for the standard variety of fruit trees for your apple, pear, cherry, plum etc then they're extremely good value and they've been generally reported favourably by some of the Grapes here.

Take Victoria Plum for example, why pay more from specialist onliners or garden centre or nursery when you get them loads cheaper. But if you want an exclusive plum variety, then go for the specialist. Having said that I've noticed that places like Woolies are now even selling Peach Pegerine, think it was only £9.99. The good thing with these cheapies store is that at least you can inspect the fruit tree/bush size before you buy unlike the onliners...been caught out with their rubbish small fruit bush that is double (or more) in price.

BTW welcome to the vine, just noticed this is your first post/thread.

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Food for Free

I agree totally. Morrison's also had apricots for £5 and they were in fine condition.

We've had peaches from Aldi, and maybe an apricot too... or it could have been Woolworths? Less than a fiver each anyway, and perfectly good plants. You do take a small risk - we had a Bramley apple which only had a tiny broken stub of root when we unwrapped it, but overall very good value indeed. And I noticed today that even the Bramley is budding nicely

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Resistance is fertile

If they are so cheap it must surely be worth a punt if you can tlc them!

janeyo

Your timing is wonderful Ann1972, because at the moment you can buy bare-rooted fruit trees for £10 or less. In a few week's time, it will be too late to plant bare-rooted trees and you'll have to pay a lot more for container-grown plants.

Check out places like Woolworths and Wilkinsons, they may well still have good bare-rooted fruit trees for £5, which are well worth snapping up. If you haven't got time to plant trees yet, and you're paying more anyway, then it's worth taking a trip to a specialist like Ken Muir and buying some unusual or heritage varieties in containers.

If you are keen to grow unusual (and also a bit more expensive) trees, I thoroughly recommend almonds, which are incredibly decorative as well as productive, and mulberries, which are really easy to grow and have one of the most delicious fruits you can eat!

I bought a Victoria Plum from Morrison's last year, it looked as good as dead and only had three roots, all of which were less than 3" long, but a bit of TLC and it's doing well. It should have been £4,99, but I bought it at the end of the season for £2.50. I noticed that Wilko had apricots the other day and although I wasn't in a position to pick one up - toddler and baby in tow - I might pop back on Monday to see if they've any left. It's all a bit hit and miss with certain fruits this far North, but if all I'm losing is a few quid, it's worth a go I think

Aldi have some in but we saw some in Asda today in Bolton about 7.99, also check out sites on Ebay, but look for 100% feedback.

Bluemoon - u been to Gordon Riggs at Kingsway, Rochdale, some fantastic fruit trees there.

No, I haven't, however I feel the beginnings of a cunning plan As from Tuesday I'm going to be caring for my grandchildren when my daughter returns to work after her maternity leave. Surely they will eventually grow bored? Surely a trip out is in order, say to Chester Zoo? Surely I can 'get lost' and end up coming home via Rochdale? If it's really good they might 'need' a trip to Blackpool one day too.

While were on the subject, can I add the additional question to this? I like Ann, want to grow fruit on my plot, but am nervous about trees growing to massive proportions and upsetting the neighbours. Can all bushes and fruit trees be kept pruned to corden size plants and still produce reasonable quantities of fruit?

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Mclaren Pit Crew (MCP) .

It's probably better to buy them on a dwarfing or semi-dwarfing rootstock, this way they stay small naturally without drastic pruning. If you over prune it's easy to take of most of the fruiting wood, although this depends upon the type of fruit you are growing. If you stick with the right rootstock then it's just a case of pruning for shape and to encourage fruiting. Sadly there's more to pruning than just lobbing bits off to keep a tree small.