Planting a mixed orchard

Hello! I live in Derbyshire, about 15 miles south of Derby. I have a smallish piece of land, formerly the corner of a cricket pitch, then a pony paddock, and then fallow for about 6 years.
The plot is 13m x 24m. Along the (long) northeast edge is a tall conifer hedge. The northwest and southwest are bordered by a sparse hawthorne hedge interspersed with the occasional tree. The southeast edge is open. There is a gentle incline from the southeast to the northwest, but it is free-draining. Behind the northwest and southwest hedges lie open fields.
We have mulched down the 1.5m-high grass, brambles and nettles, and we would like to plant a mixed orchard. We would be really grateful for advice on the number of trees to plant in the plot, when to plant them, and what we should do to prepare the plot for planting. Any tips on the mixture of fruit trees and varieties would also be very welcome.

 

Hi and welcome to GC.

I've started an orchard too. Mine is still in its infancy, currently consisting of two apple trees, and 50 crab apple trees, but I've done a bit of research into it and can tell you what I've learned so far. I've been round a couple of open orchards for ideas, and done a fair bit of reading up as well, but I'm not the expert at all, and certainly not very experienced in it yet, but here goes.

Your plot sounds ideal. You've got good drainage, and should have good sunlight, with the south east being open, so that's a good start.

You know that most fruit trees need a compatible partner for pollination if they are going to set fruit? That means you either need two trees of the same species and variety, or two of different but compatible varieties. Most suppliers will tell you what's compatible with what. I read also that in the case of apples, some grow crab apples in their hedge as an extra backup for pollination, just to increase the chances that another compatible tree will be in bloom at the same time as your main apple trees. I'm not sure if that works or not but crab apple trees are cheap as chips and look nice, so I put a load in my hedgerow anyway.

One thing you must not overlook, and this time I am speaking (well writing) from experience, is protection for the trees from rabbits and deer. I know it tells you this all over the net, but it is easy to wonder why they would single you out when the countryside is full of food for them. They do it because they are evil furry little demons and take pleasure from your disappointment. You will need tree guards for all your baby trees They are not an optional extra, if you don't protect your trees you might as well save the money you were going to spend on them, and send the money to me so I can go out beer drinking.

Tree guards aren't 100% defence from rabbits, and certainly not from deer. They just offer enough resistance to being eaten to give the tree a fighting chance. It would be wise, if practical, to put rabbit mesh around the whole plot. If you choose to do that, you need to prevent the rabbits from simply tunneling under it. There are two ways to do that. The lazy method is to fold the bottom 6 to 8 inches of the mesh out over and peg it down as you erect the fence, and then chuck turf over it. The idea being that the rabbit walks up to the fence, tries to dig under it but finds the mesh, decides its not worth the effort and wanders off to find someone else's trees to destroy. The other way is to dig a trench about 8 inches deep, sit the mesh in it, and back fill. I did the lazy way for some of my plants, and so far they are still intact.

Deer are a bigger problem. They can easily jump a low fence, and tree guards offer no resistance. Touch wood, so far the deer that stray onto my land have so far done little in the way of damage, probably because the trees I'm bothered about are in the open and close to the road, and deers are shy creatures. As winter approaches though I plan to implement a strategy I learned from Heligan Garden in Cornwall. In their orchard the simply build a wooden fence around each apple tree, but instead of the posts being perfectly vertical, the set them up like an inverted cone. They claim that the idea is that the deer approaches, rears up to vault the fence, bags its head on the overhang, and gives up. They claim it works but I wouldn't know.

As for planting, again this is something I learnt from Heligan, just make sure you dig the ground nice and deep, and make the hole much larger than you might have though. They said to dig one cubic metre per tree if the ground is hard. Put lots of manure in there too.

When to plant: If you are buying bare rooted trees, then any time from mid november to early february. Most suppliers won't even sell you bare root trees if its not the right time for them, so you should have no problems there. If you've bought the supermarket dessicated ones, soak them in water overnight and get them in asap. If you get garden centre ones happily growing in big buckets, any time really as you won't be upsetting the roots very much.

As for what to grow, apart from make sure they all have compatible pollination partners, its up to your personal preferences I reckon. There is disease resistance, crop yield and growth habit to consider but most suppliers will give you hints on that.

I must reiterate that apart from the bit about rabbit and deer damage, most of what I just said is based on what I've read or seen elsewhere, rather than from personal experience, so take it or leave it (apart from the rabbit protection bit which you leave at your peril ).

Good luck with your project, I really hope it works. Keep us all posted will you because we're all interested (and a bit nosey ), and as I'm still learning as I go, I'd love to hear about anything you learn with yours:gnthb:

 

Thanks clueless1!

That's a really useful post. I hadn't considered rabbits (and we have a few around here). Chickenwire around the plot will probably be the way we go.

Planting crab apples in the hedge is something I hadn't considered, but is a great idea. It'll bring back memories too - when I were a lad (1860s) our house had a row of crab apples along the bottom of the garden. I've seen several recommendations for the distance between trees, anything from 4m to 6m. With the former I would be looking at three rows of six, and with the latter two rows of five. It would be nice to get four each of apples, pears and plums.

From next spring, the paddock next door will have two horses in it, so regular infusions of manure won't be a problem. Should I let it rot for a few months first, or dig it straight in? In any case, I'll have to order some in for the initial planting. The soil is quite hard, too. I had thought of getting in a rotovator and turning over three planting strips - but on second thoughts, I might be better off hiring a mini-digger.

Currently looking at nursery websites and making plaintive "want" noises... :D

 

If you google 'rabbit proof fencing' or 'rabbit mesh', you'll be alright. Chicken wire typically is sold in rolls of a width that doesn't make a high enough fence in one layer. It's not too expensive. I got some from Amazon last year. Sorry I can't remember how much I paid or how long it was, but it was less than half of what I'd have paid at the likes of B&Q.

The other thing is, for the sake of a very small investment (a few quid at most), I'd get tree protectors as well as meshing the whole lot off. If a rabbit does find its way in, it is capable of doing a lot of damage in a little time. It would be tragic for you to spend £25-30 per tree, put in all the effort of planting them, only for the furry demons to come along at dusk or dawn and bust it all up. The little sods got my crab apples and hazels and completely decimated them. Luckily they grew back from the roots and now I've got protectors on them. However commercially produced fruit trees can't do that, as they are usually a graft of one tree onto the rootstock of another. So for example if the top of a braeburn gets destroyed, and it comes back from the roots (with the rootstock being from some variety of crab apple), you won't get braeburns, you'll get crab apples instead. So the top growth must be protected.

Choose a spot that will be your compost heap and stack it there, and keep it there for probably at least 12 months. Fresh manure has quite a lot of amonia in it, which will turn the soil acid. This breaks down (or goes somewhere by the magic of chemistry or biology way beyond me) as it rots, resulting in a nice pH neutral manure.[/quote]