Newly planted small orchard

Kieran10

Hi everyone. Total novice gardener so excuse my ignorance. I have a few questions about caring for my newly planted fruit trees. I planted 4 apple trees and a pear and a plum tree. Discover apple x2, Falstaf red apple x2, conference pear and Victoria plum. They were all from pots and two years old. I bought The Fruit tree handbook by Ben Pike and it is excellent. One thing about the book though is that Ben is not fond of spraying chemicals on the trees, which is fair enough. Im looking for advice on what sprays I should be using and when and how much I should spray. Also I have bought grease bands for my trees but do I need to use them on trees that are so young and have not fruited yet? 

My pear tree has very upright branches and I'm considering tying them down. Is there anything special to tie around the branches so I don't damage them. 

fidgetbones

Pears do well if you can espalier or fan train them to canes. I would use a soft twine such as nutscene, using plastic runs the risk of it being forgotten and then digging into the branches as they grow.

I have quite a few fruit trees. I don't spray them. I use codling moth traps for the apples and plum moth pheromone traps for the plum moths. That seems to sort it. The plum moths are an ongoing problem, but I seem to have no codling moth any more, and have stopped using the codling moth traps. Encouraging blue tits in the garden by hanging fat balls in the branches of your trees , is a great natural control. They pick off insects while they are queuing for the fat balls.  If you get a really bad infestation, then spray if you want, but it is just a waste of money spraying if it is not necessary.

Kieran10

fidgetbones says:

Pears do well if you can espalier or fan train them to canes. I would use a soft twine such as nutscene, using plastic runs the risk of it being forgotten and then digging into the branches as they grow.

I have quite a few fruit trees. I don't spray them. I use codling moth traps for the apples and plum moth pheromone traps for the plum moths. That seems to sort it. The plum moths are an ongoing problem, but I seem to have no codling moth any more, and have stopped using the codling moth traps. Encouraging blue tits in the garden by hanging fat balls in the branches of your trees , is a great natural control. They pick off insects while they are queuing for the fat balls.  If you get a really bad infestation, then spray if you want, but it is just a waste of money spraying if it is not necessary.

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 Thanks for your reply. I already have a few bird feeders so I'll add a few fat balls too. Should I start using those moth traps straight away or wait until my trees have grown a bit? 

fidgetbones

You put the moth traps out when the flowers start to open. Instructions are on the pack .the pheromone comes on a rubber plug in a sealed sachet, and you put that in the middle of a sticky sheet of cardboard. The tent things are reusable, you get refills for the following year.