The Hope Garden landscaping isn’t quite finished, so we‘re unable to plant it up yet. Luckily, Pen Y Foidr allotments let us plant their Welsh varieties of apple, plum, damson and pear, along the northern hedge just to the rear of the Hope Garden.
The weather was appalling, high winds and heavy, driving rain. Out of the original twelve people who signed up, only Nina could make it 💪. We would have postponed but the trees have been in a bag for over week and they needed planting out.
Weather, very wet, very windy
What we have done is a series of short videos, to capture these three key points of planting fruit trees:
- Only dig a hole just big enough for the roots. No need to dig a big hole, nor a square hole, definitely don’t put compost on it.
- Point the main root to where the prevailing wind comes from. This stimulates growth in the root and anchors the whole tree.
- No need to stake any semi-vigorous or vigorous tree; only stake trees with ‘dwarfing’ in the rootstock name.
The trees are all from Ian Sturrock, and all very interesting Welsh varieties, and all on 4m high and wide rootstocks (MM106 for apples, Colt for cherry, St Julien A for plum, Quince A for pear):
- Apple ‘Gwell na mil’
- Apple ‘Marged Nicolas’
- Apple ‘Morgan Sweet’
- Apple ‘Pig Aderyn’
- Apple ‘Pig y Golomen’
- Apple ‘Pren Glas’
- Cherry ‘Cariad’
- Damson ‘Abergeyngregyn’
- Pear ‘Brenhines yr Wyddfa’
- Pear ‘Penrhyn castle’
- Plum ‘Denbigh’
There are 15 trees in total, I’ll go back and take photos of all the labels and create a custom OpenStreetMap with the data on. I’ll also make metal labels with which will last as long as the tree. The plastic labels will snap off after a couple of years, and string will cut into the bark as the tree grows.
Make the labels like you curl a present ribbon!
These are made using the Dymo Rhino M1011 which I bought second-hand fairly cheaply.
The trees came with cardboard guards, but to be honest, these are starting come apart in the rain already! Will probably only last a few weeks, so they‘ll need replacing with compostable plastic ones. Guards are necessary to protect against rabbit and rodent damage.
The stakes are there to protect the trees from being mown
I also hammered in some stakes about a foot away from the tree, as there will be a mini-tractor and mower coming down the track in August time, when the grass is tall and the trees will be hidden from view. A wooden stake will help focus the driver‘s attention!