As Autumn is a good time to plant trees and fruit bushes Alex and I went to the local garden centre this weekend (Lilliams in Kiltarlity). We ended up with three apple trees; a Bramley apple a Spartan and a Laxtons’ Superb along with blackcurrant bushes, raspberry canes and a loganberry. We had not even thought about cross pollination, but due to the lack of other gardens and fruit trees around us, we needed to make sure our trees could be pollinated. If we had only bought the Spartan and Bramley we may have ended up waiting for a while for our apples, the Laxton Superb is a delicious apple and also essential for us as a pollinator of the other trees. Alex and Thora spent a while working out where to put the new trees and bushes.
It feels like we are starting to get there, we now have our gooseberry bushes, red currants, black currants, plum and the new apple trees. Next, I want to add a few pear trees, a quince and few more apple varieties, including my favorite which is a Discovery, as it’s always the first to fruit and the apples are deliciously sweet with beautiful pink flesh. Now all we have to do is wait and eventually we will have our fruit.
We finished off the week by planting our new hedge which is a mix of Rowan, Hazel and Willow, it should look really great when it grows, although at the moment it is still pretty hard to see it! Alex has also been planting lots of other native trees in the clearing and was surprised and relieved when he realised he had got down to his last few sapling protectors, meaning he has planted an awful lot already.
