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Fruit trees in wildlife garden

NorthernJoeNorthernJoe Posts: 660
in Fruit & veg
We've got a hillside garden split into two by a fence and gate. The lower section is a more traditional, landscaped and planned garden. The upper is more natural with daffodils, hellebores, wild garlic and locally found woodland ground cover plants. There's trees from a large girth but topped off leylandii type Conifer to decent sized beech, Holly,  yew and three fruit trees. Well they look like fruit trees but having just moved in I do not have enough knowledge to fully identify them. It's a garden with dappled shade.

If these are indeed fruit trees I need to give them some more help to get their best I reckon. What should I do?

I am thinking of clearing the vegetation from around their trunk, say a 1m diameter cleared round to the base of each. Then bone meal fertilizer and perhaps get something like woodchip cover to prevent the plants returning. What would you recommend? Should I wait to see what exactly they are first or take the chance I'm right with the identification with the hope the improvements might produce a crop?

We viewed the property in autumn but never noticed these were fruit trees back then. There was an apple tree in the more formal, lower garden and the had ripe apples but I am saw no fruit on trees in the upper section. I suspect the ground cover possibly other trees were out competing the trees.

PS there's another section of the upper garden could take another tree. I'm wondering about Rowan/mountain ash. Good for the berries for birds and us. The berry jelly makes great accompaniment to certain roast meats. Is that a good idea?

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  • garyd52garyd52 Posts: 51
    Have you never seen a fruit tree growing in a farmers hedge ? i've seen many over the years and they invariably have other plants growing close all around , I have a smallish widlflower meadow/wild garden  that's 100%  native plants only and has native Rowan Crab Apple and Spindleberry trees and all have smaller plants growing right up to the trunks , there are no gardeners in the wild to clear around trees and yet our native fruit trees do just fine .
  • Butterfly66Butterfly66 Posts: 970
    I would wait and see if they are fruit trees and how well they crop as they are. You may well get enough fruit as it is. Our apple tree is on the edge of a flower bed but is completely surrounded by other plants to three sides and has grass on the other and we get far more apples than we can use. We also have a damson in our wild area and he is also completely surrounded by ground over and other plants and is competing with large shrubs just over the fence. We get a reasonable crop - we could probably get more if we cleared the area but the it’s enough to give us a dozen jars of jam.

    You’ll know quite quickly if they are fruit trees as they should be showing signs of blossom developing fairly soon. If they have lots of blossom then you should get a reasonable crop. If you didn’t notice any fruit when looking around in the Autumn, they could be plums or a relative or cherries or maybe an early cropping apple.
     If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero
    East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
  • steephillsteephill Posts: 2,841
    Plums would be blossoming now, cherries showing buds but nothing yet from apples. So patience would be your best optiin.
  • PlashingPlashing Posts: 328
    They could even be crab apple or damson, wen I did tree and hedge planting for farmers we always used a crab apple and other fruiting trees and bushes.so I should wait and see.
  • PlashingPlashing Posts: 328
    Whoops that should be when and no wen.
  • LoxleyLoxley Posts: 5,698
    No need to rush into anything and potentially spoil the natural-ness of the upper area. I would rather have the woodland understorey than a glut of apples to be honest.
    "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour". 
  • Nanny BeachNanny Beach Posts: 8,719
    Lets have some pictures
  • NorthernJoeNorthernJoe Posts: 660
    Noticed a tag on one, it's a conference pear. That'll be for the family I can't abide pears. They make me physically sick for some reason. Hope there's apples among the other two.

    I'm not really a big fan of apples and pears. Prefer berries and especially gooseberries. I believe it's late to plant them and get a good this year now but I think I'll plan for his next year.
  • BobTheGardenerBobTheGardener Posts: 11,385
    If you can get potted currant and other berry fruit bushes, get them in soon, and you'll definitely have a crop in 2022.  Bare-root plants won't (or shouldn't) be available now until they go dormant in autumn and then they'll take 2 years to start producing, so 2023 the earliest if you wait for those.
    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
  • NorthernJoeNorthernJoe Posts: 660
    There's a short and stumpy conference pear. Loads of suckers and some branches covered in moss. I've cut back the suckers, the dead branches, growing inwards branches and the thin branches that weren't doing much but fill the centre. I doubt it'll do much. I thought conference pears grew tall. This looks like it's not doing too well.
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