What's new, what's growing, what we're learning. Updates, guides and stories for people who take their garden seriously.
Not the winter but the early blossom is the apricot's risk. With a warm wall, a late-flowering variety and fleece on the frost night, the harvest succeeds here too.
Peach and nectarine bear only on the one-year-old shoot. Why you prune boldly, how the replacement spur works and when the best pruning time is.
Pears want warmth, flower early and almost always need a pollinator. How to solve the pear puzzle of spot, quince rootstock and a matching second variety.
Planted bare root during dormancy, almost any fruit tree establishes better than container stock. What to check when you buy, how deep the tree goes, and what it needs through its first winter against voles, browsing and frost cracks.
It is not the variety that sets your fruit tree's size, but the rootstock. What M9, MM106 and seedling mean, and how to choose the right one when buying.
Winter pruning scares many, yet the basics fit on a beer mat. Thin out, deflect, head back, and the rule: steep grows, flat bears.
Variety, rootstock and spot decide the flavour, size and yield of your apple tree. How three questions lead you to the tree that fits your garden.
The apple winter cut follows the same order every year. Five steps from dead wood to fruiting wood, plus the trick against biennial bearing's glut and lean years.
Shortly after flowering, whole shoot tips of the sour cherry wilt and die brown. It looks like late frost but is Monilia blossom blight. How to tell the two apart and why cutting back well into the healthy wood is the key.
