Fruit trees

Newbiegardner

I am looking to plant an apple tree trained against a fence and pear tree near it against my shed but a bit worried as I’ve read that they need to be near a pollinator. Any advice ?

pansyface

First things first.

1. Where (ish) do you live?

Pears need a warmer climate to develop eatable fruit than my garden in Derbyshire can provide, for example.

2. Apples. Cooker or eater?

Choose a variety that you like and then come back to us. 🙂

Newbiegardner

I live in Liverpool, We are looking to eat the fruit. I was thinking about conference pear and Braeburn apple ?

pansyface

Braeburn is a good choice as it is self fertile. So it can produce apples without another variety of apple tree in the area but will do even better if there happens to be one.

Conference is a reliable variety. If your garden is warm and sunny you may be lucky and get edible pears from it.

chicky

All apple and pear trees do best with a pollinating partner - that is another tree (different variety) that flowers at about the same time.  The link below explains it well for apples, and there is a table for pears on the same site

https://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/gardening-advice/fruit-tree-advice/apple-tree-pollination1

Your Braeburn is a late flowerer (Group E) so will need another in group D or E or F to pollinate it.  Even supposedly self fertile trees do much better with a partner.

If you don’t have room for 4 trees, maybe you could go for just 2 apples or 2 pears?  Or grow the extra 2 as stepovers which take up very little room - you can even use them to edge a border.

Newbiegardner

Sadly I don’t have room for 4 trees and really wanted one apple and one pear, will do more reading, I still have a few months before we start work on the garden thankfully !

Pete.8

As an alternative to Conference have you considered Concorde.
It's a cross between Conference and Comice and is delicious!
Far superior to Conference and also self-fertile.
https://www.chrisbowers.co.uk/product/pear-concorde/

If there are plenty of gardens where you live, chances are some will have apple trees, so pollination partners for apples in such a location is usually not a concern.

Newbiegardner

I think our neighbour has an apple tree so hopefully that will help, I’ve not looked at concord but will definitely take a look ! Thanks so much

Dovefromabove

We have a Concorde pear grown as an espalier ... we have no other pear trees and I don't know of any in neighbouring gardens ... we get a good crop from ours and the fruit are much superior to Conference.  Large and juicy, without going soft as soon as you look at them as some pears do.  Ours produced its first fruit four years after we'd planted it, which we were very pleased with.  

pansyface

I have a Conference pear tree that was here when we moved in. It flowers nicely and then produces small hard fruit that even the wasps ignore.

I had a Comice, Concorde, Conference family pear tree that flowered beautifully but never set fruit except on the Conference part. Again, just small hard lumps for the Conference fruit.

I waited ten years for it to change its mind and then it had to go, to make way for a blackcurrant bush that at least produces a decent return.

It’s too cold here in the Derbyshire hills for pears.

Newbiegardner

We do currently have a pear tree in the garden that we inherited when we moved in but it’s all bent out of shape and the fruit just never ripens so it’s a real waste of space for us (no clue what type it is either). I’m hoping if I start it off I might be able to keep it in shape. I saw a lovely tree that was trained against what I can only describe as a trident so would be leaning towards that sort of training (especially as I want it to hide an end of a shed) 🤞