For Christmas this year we bought ourselves fruit trees- last year at the Southwell Apple Day we had been tempted by two apple trees, so it seemed a good idea to add some pears as well and build a frame work to grow them as cordons. The frame is simply made with fence posts with wire at 2 foot heights .
Cordons are grown at a 45 degree angle and the spurs are kept pruned so the trees only fruit on these short spurs along the trunk. If possible the tree should face north or east to encourage the short spurs to turn to the sun, so obviously tip fruiting trees are unsuitable as each year the growing tips will be removed. Pruning is carried out in August time, the spurs are cut back to either 2 buds- or about 4 inches long. The growing tip is rubbed out when the tree is between 6-8 ft and kept this height.
The trees are supported by bamboo canes at about 3 feet apart. The pears we got were bare rooted so we put them in straight away, but the apple have been in containers so these will go in during the next week or so .
The pears are on Quince C root stock and the apples on M9- we choose Beurre Hardy and Concorde pears- these give different fruiting qualities, will help to pollinate each other and spread out the harvesting time.The apples are Pixie- a small fruited apple but with a good flavour and Reinette d'Orleans - a heritage variety that has a russet look to it, apparently it can be variable fruiting but the flavour was great so we thought it would be worth a try.
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