Back with fruit tree bargains, now to find out if they are really good buys!

During a visit to a large supermarket, we stumbled across some bare-rooted fruit trees. Now I can't resist a bargain, so we came away with the following:
cherry "lapins"
Plum "California Blue"
Plum "conducta"
Apple "Gloster 69"

A few minutes of googling seems to tell me we've hit lucky with the cherry. I'm thinking of planting it at the top of the garden (on the side of a valley, facing south-west, with fairly strong prevailing winds. Thought is that the late frosts should be lessened at the top of the garden, rather than the bottom of the slope, which is probably a relative frost pocket.

The Gloster, seems to be a love-it or hate-it tree. Sounds like a good general pollinator, so one to help the purchase of an "interesting" mix of UK varieties we hope to order for this autumn. Thinking of planting this at the Lower part of the slope, as its a late flower-er, so should cope better with late frosts...

The plums...hmmm... This is where google struggled. Conducta is a reine Claude, v popular here in Belgium. Not a huge cropper. California blue, the only thing we could find on this was a trial where both trees failed! After struggling to negotiate a supermarket with 15 foot trees in our trolley, swerving to avoid all the hanging advertisements - please tell me it was not a waste of time!!!!

Seriously, any extra info would be gratefully appreciated. Climate seems more severe than Midlands in UK, but with hot summers....

 

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/07-039.htm

Try this for the cultivar "California Blue"

http://thymetogrow.com/component/content/article/83-products-catalog/17364-8367.html

And this for the Plum "conducta"
http://www.gardenappleid.co.uk/index.php/alphabetic-list-of-apples/101-gloster-69

Finally the Apple "Gloster 69"

Hope you can get your thoughts worked out with this help.

 

Advice on planting...
The rootballed fruit trees that we purchased have sat in our frost free garage, as the ground has been frozen for a long time.... However, one of the trees is now starting to come into bud.

The question is, would it be better to plant the trees, even though they will be exposed to sub-zero temps overnight, or wait ...

I'm guessing the answer is plant, but I'd like a second opinion!

 

Ok, we'll I had muscle on hand, so hubby and I have planted all four trees.

The cherry and apple are both showing signs of breaking bud. They are also the two smaller trees. I have two horticultural fleeces. We have a forecast -3c tonight, I had to dig through frozen compost to get to soft stuff, and we have ice in various buckets around the garden, snow still lying in sheltered spots (from about 7 days ago), and a frozen hand pump....

It think its a good idea to cover the two budding trees, at least for the first week?

 

I bought some bare rooted fruit trees last year from a 'supermarket'. Of course, by this time last year, the weather was warmer.

They budded the first year, but the crop was virtually non existant - so, don't hold your breath for anything this year. Looked at mine today and they do seem to have a fair few buds on them (they won't open until the weather warms, but it's still an encouraging sight!).

Wishing you good fortune with them Sian

 

I fleeced the two "sprouting" trees last night (had -2, but with wind), and have uncovered them now. The temperature is above freezing, and they were being blown about by the wind. I'll probably cover them again tonight...

 

I was always told to remove newly planted fruit tree buds for the first year so the roots had a chance to grow.
Seemed to have worked out well for us as our apple tree was full of bud last year and solid in the gound too.
So glad it is not a Mulberry tree as you have to wait 7 yes seven years for this to fruit, a walnut could be longer.

 

I may not remove the buds, but I will stop all the trees from fruiting this year....