Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2011 | Page 80
Gardening
with Tina Hughes
Tina trained as a professional gardener after leaving school and
spent a summer working in Tuscany as an English Gardener. She
has a National Diploma in Horticulture.
A fruitful plan
I have recently been discussing a
scheme to plant an orchard in a
friend’s garden. The idea is to provide
some screening from an adjoining
property as well as a long season of
colour and interest. This will be an
orchard with a difference though.
Instead of the choosing the usual
eating or cooking varieties needing
formative and annual pruning grease
bands, pheromone traps and all the
rest this will be a low maintenance
orchard, needing very little care other
than watering in the first season,
and keeping the planting hole free
of grass or weeds for a few seasons.
This ‘orchard’ will be made up of a
collection of ornamental crab apple
trees that will provide plenty of pollen
and nectar for the bees and fruit for
the birds.
This is an idea that I have used
before, and it works really well,
especially in a rural setting. In
addition to the benefits I have already
mentioned, any neighbouring apple
trees will benefit as crab apples make
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excellent pollinators for many varieties
which need to be cross pollinated to
bear good crops.
There are plenty of different
varieties to choose from, about thirty
five in all, with lots of cultivars. Two
of the most popular varieties are Malus
‘John Downie’ which produces large
ornamental red flushed orange fruit,
whilst Malus ‘Golden Hornet’ bears a
profusion of golden-yellow fruits. At
the top of my list though is a variety
called ‘Evereste’ which has an RHS
Award of Garden Merit. The flowers
are large, about 5cm across, starting
off as pink buds which open to reveal
white flowers. The fruits are a good
shade of yellowish orange.
All Crab apples are fully hardy
and generally easy to grow. They are
at their best in full sun, where the
effects of their fruit and foliage can
be seen to its full advantage. The only
conditions where they will not survive
are in waterlogged soil. These trees
will generally grow to about 10m (30’)
when mature.
TINA'S TIPS
• Clear up fallen leaves and apples
from under the trees to reduce the
spread of disease.
• Rake leaves off of lawns.
• Use Crab Apples for wine-making
and jelly, delicious spread on bread
or enjoy with roast pork or goose.
HAVE A QUESTION?
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