The gardening thread
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Apple trees will need a pollination partner. That is, another apple (or crab) nearby. Do your neighbours have apples, Saffy? You can grow apples in very small spaces...either by growing them as a cordon, or training an apple to grow in 2 dimensions on a wall or fence, or even something called a 'stepover'. My point being, you will need 2 different trees, but both within the same pollination group, in order for the fruit to be pollinated and develop into apples.
Fruit trees which are self-fertile (which grow without needing a different pollination partner) are cherries, plums, nectarines, gages, damsons and apricots. Pear will also need another pollination partner (and in some cases (Comice pears, Bramley apples), 2 other partners are needed because the parent plants are triploid and must be pollinated by 2 other pear varieties.
You will also need to consider what sort of size you want. This is controlled by grafting the apple (scion) onto vigorous one year old plants (stock) which determine the eventual size and vigour of your chosen tree.
www.rhs.org.uk
An apple will give you a lifetime of joy. Fruit to eat, blossom for our spring pollinators, autumn colour and a beautiful architectural branching sculpture over winter. It is an investment of time, energy and love and will repay you a hundred-fold. It is worth choosing carefully and buying a plant from a proper tree nursery such as Frank P Matthews, which will be lifted from the ground as dormant bare-roots (usually maiden whips (1 year old) or 2 year olds which have already been selected for training. When you have decided what size and shape you want, there will be lists of local fruits which will do well in your soil and climate. There are thousands to choose from but fortunately, the choices can be marrowed down so that you end up with the best plant for you and your garden.
No need to rush. The bare-root season stretches until spring...although it is always better to plant early to take advantage of the last summer warmth in the soil and encourage establishment during winter rains, so always best planted before Xmas.
Fruit trees which are self-fertile (which grow without needing a different pollination partner) are cherries, plums, nectarines, gages, damsons and apricots. Pear will also need another pollination partner (and in some cases (Comice pears, Bramley apples), 2 other partners are needed because the parent plants are triploid and must be pollinated by 2 other pear varieties.
You will also need to consider what sort of size you want. This is controlled by grafting the apple (scion) onto vigorous one year old plants (stock) which determine the eventual size and vigour of your chosen tree.
Rootstocks for fruit / RHS Gardening
Many fruit trees and some ornamentals are grafted onto rootstocks. These rootstocks control the vigour of the plant, allowing the cultivation of trees and bushes in a smaller space than if they were grown on their own roots.
An apple will give you a lifetime of joy. Fruit to eat, blossom for our spring pollinators, autumn colour and a beautiful architectural branching sculpture over winter. It is an investment of time, energy and love and will repay you a hundred-fold. It is worth choosing carefully and buying a plant from a proper tree nursery such as Frank P Matthews, which will be lifted from the ground as dormant bare-roots (usually maiden whips (1 year old) or 2 year olds which have already been selected for training. When you have decided what size and shape you want, there will be lists of local fruits which will do well in your soil and climate. There are thousands to choose from but fortunately, the choices can be marrowed down so that you end up with the best plant for you and your garden.
No need to rush. The bare-root season stretches until spring...although it is always better to plant early to take advantage of the last summer warmth in the soil and encourage establishment during winter rains, so always best planted before Xmas.
Saffy
Under the duvet..
Thank you, that's so helpful campanula, I really appreciate you taking the time to answer. My next door neighbours don't have apple trees but the neighbours over the road do. Would that be near enough?
I'm going to have a read of your link this morning. I feel like I have a bit more time than I originally thought I had.
Thanks again.
I'm going to have a read of your link this morning. I feel like I have a bit more time than I originally thought I had.
Thanks again.
Something at least partially self-fertile - which James Grieve is - would be safest if you only want to plant one tree and there aren't other apples or crabapples nearby for pollination (and an apple tree growing next door won't necessarily be any help if it flowers at a different time from yours or it's a triploid variety). How much space do you have? You could maybe plant two trees on something like an M9 rootstock to keep them small, or even as cordons or espaliers trained along a wall or fence.My Mum wants to buy me an apple tree because I've been banging on about one for years. Any recommendations on what sort? I've done a bit of reading and thought a James Grieve apple tree might be good. Help!
Tbh there's so many varieties that I'd focus on choosing something that you'll like the taste of and fits how you'll use it (cooking/eating/both). List a few of those and there's bound to be something that meets all your other criteria. Later ripening varieties generally keep for longer than the earlier ones. For cordons/espaliers you'd want a spur bearing variety, not a tip bearer.
Bare root season hasn't started yet but lots of stuff is already sold out at the suppliers I've been looking at, so worth ordering asap just to be able to get what you want.
I will say that James Grieve is an excellent apple. I used to regularly cycle out to an orchard in Haddenham (which involved an almighty trawl up a giant hill - probably the only one in the fens). Freewheeling back down, with panniers stuffed with apples was one of my late summer highlights. A lovely, juicy apple...with similar aromatic flavours to Coxes, but without any of the pesky problems which pippins can fall prey to - namely the biennial cycle of glut one year, scarcity the next.
There are many lists of suitable partners for JG...including crabs (I have John Downie, a beautiful, white flowered crab which makes excellent jelly). I do recall having to pick and pack JG fairly carefully as it is a thin skinned apple.
I believe there are a few very small minarette apples which can be grown in a pot, and can act as a pollination partner. These little trees (look for the'ballerina' type) are ideal for balconies, patios and tiny gardens, being basically a single stemmed cordon, grown as an upright column. Usually, around October, there are a lot of 'apple days' around the country. These are always worth checking out, as a means to tasting and choosing your perfect apple(s). I dunno where you are but I am sure there will be one which is accessible to you.
There are many lists of suitable partners for JG...including crabs (I have John Downie, a beautiful, white flowered crab which makes excellent jelly). I do recall having to pick and pack JG fairly carefully as it is a thin skinned apple.
I believe there are a few very small minarette apples which can be grown in a pot, and can act as a pollination partner. These little trees (look for the'ballerina' type) are ideal for balconies, patios and tiny gardens, being basically a single stemmed cordon, grown as an upright column. Usually, around October, there are a lot of 'apple days' around the country. These are always worth checking out, as a means to tasting and choosing your perfect apple(s). I dunno where you are but I am sure there will be one which is accessible to you.
Was going to oil the deck at the horsebox but now stuck in town (no fuel to be had anywhere). Was fleetingly tempted to go by train but lugging my bike over the railway bridge is a 'mare so I am planning the first mass seed-sowing of the season. I have already scattered quite a lot of hardy annuals but I am sowing modules to overwinter in the garden (I stack the pots at the back of a huge raft of Japanese anemones). Greenhouse still full of tomatoes and a lot of tender plants so much of the winter seeds are destined to stay outside this year. I have had a fun trawl through my seed boxes though, discovering old friends with joy (plus a heap of stuff I ordered when feeling sorry for myself over summer)
Saffy
Under the duvet..
I'm going to an 'apple day' on Wednesday campanula and iona! 
I didn't know they were a thing but I was looking in my email and I had an email from a National Trust place near me which are running talks about choosing and caring for apple trees in their orchard. They've got over 100 different types, so hopefully I'll find something which will suit my garden.
I didn't know they were a thing but I was looking in my email and I had an email from a National Trust place near me which are running talks about choosing and caring for apple trees in their orchard. They've got over 100 different types, so hopefully I'll find something which will suit my garden.
Minden Pictures - Witchgrass (Panicum capillare) flowering panicles - Nigel Cattlin/ FLPA
Nigel Cattlin/ FLPA / Witchgrass (Panicum capillare) flowering panicles / 80114332
I am having another grass 'moment' sparked off by this little beauty. I also found myself buying a stripey miscanthus (Little Zebra) after a decade long swearing off grasses (mostly because it is a freaking nightmare keeping grasses out of my 'Grasses'. As well as the panic grass, my muhlenbergia capillaris also flowered this year, with a haze of pink flowers. I am intending to redo the gravel garden this year as it has become an ugly repository of shapeless, clumpy plants - all lovely in their place...which is not a sunny gravel garden. So, have overhauled the gauras and euphorbias while the salvias, baptisias, daylilies, dianthus, cistus (all of which are now overgrown and graceless) are on the outs. Meanwhile, my collection of tiny geophytes, which have been languishing in pots for years, can finally show their potential in the unimproved, sandy infertile soil of my allotment. I can't believe I have dithered for so long...but I now have a plan and a purpose (and a number of homeless agapanthus, albucas, and the like).
For anyone complaining about wormy apples - so far this week I've found codling moth caterpillars crawling up the kitchen walls and in my waterproofs, my shoes and now my wallet 
I'm not that fussed about picking them out of apples but still a bit too squeamish to eat one on its own.
I'm not that fussed about picking them out of apples but still a bit too squeamish to eat one on its own.I'm kinda liking grasses at the moment too campanula. Got a load of massive molinia caerulea 'transparent' plus some smaller species to divide and replant in better places along with volunteers in one of my work gardens, they do really well in the wind on top of the Downs so I'll be nabbing a few for other people. Someone gave me a few imperata cylindrica for the garden here that I really like too.
Still don't do lawns though!
Still don't do lawns though!
Me neither (lawns)@iona. I had to do a term of groundskeeping on the RHS course which I found surprisingly interesting (I still have my notes with loads of grass seeds sellotaped to the pages). I would never have chosen such a course except tutor shortages meant we had no choice. Nor would I choose to have lawns but my customers love them still, especially with the right choice of grass, proper drainage, regular maintenance (in short, ones I look(ed) after.
Mmm, molinia. I have a couple of these from my previous grass craze - 'Skyracer 'and a teeny 'Edith Dudszus'. All the stipas had to go (because seeding maniacs) and my soil simply couldn't sustain the 'prairie' Piet Oudolph/Karl Foerster style of planting I was aiming for. (so panicums, miscanthus, pennisetums had to go too.
I am going to try to be disciplined in the (new, better) gravel garden. I am definitely getting my eldest and D-i-L to help because I can't really see any way of going about it without lifting pretty much everything apart from the romneya. I am going to have to ...plan
Mmm, molinia. I have a couple of these from my previous grass craze - 'Skyracer 'and a teeny 'Edith Dudszus'. All the stipas had to go (because seeding maniacs) and my soil simply couldn't sustain the 'prairie' Piet Oudolph/Karl Foerster style of planting I was aiming for. (so panicums, miscanthus, pennisetums had to go too.
I am going to try to be disciplined in the (new, better) gravel garden. I am definitely getting my eldest and D-i-L to help because I can't really see any way of going about it without lifting pretty much everything apart from the romneya. I am going to have to ...plan
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
salvia
I have a plant at home called pineapple sage but the red flowers are much longer and thinner - more like S. amistad but smaller! It does smell a bit pineapple-y but not loads.
Looks like this - elsewhere said pineapple smelling leaves. Salvia leaves normally look a bit fluffier though, and the description says simple or pinnate leaves.
Salvia microphylla | baby sage Shrubs/RHS Gardening
Find help & information on Salvia microphylla baby sage Shrubs from the RHS
I presume I'm going to be best bringing it into the conservatory for winter.
gentlegreen
I hummus, therefore I am ...
My pink pampas must know its days are numbered.
I didn't even feed it this year and it looks like it's going to produce the most flower spikes ever.
Coincidentally there's a spectacularly flowering miscanthus in the park.
Here's hoping that for the first time ever, the wet and windy weather holds off so I can appreciate it for a reasonable amount of time.
There's room to the left to fit a fence post and panel, but it will have to come up next year - I will probably not be able to resist making lots of plants from it to give away.
Unfortunately it hasn't rerooted since slumping, so I can't simply don full hasmat and pot the whole thing up in a tub, though doubtless I may try to do something creative with large lumps of it ...
I didn't even feed it this year and it looks like it's going to produce the most flower spikes ever.
Coincidentally there's a spectacularly flowering miscanthus in the park.
Here's hoping that for the first time ever, the wet and windy weather holds off so I can appreciate it for a reasonable amount of time.
There's room to the left to fit a fence post and panel, but it will have to come up next year - I will probably not be able to resist making lots of plants from it to give away.
Unfortunately it hasn't rerooted since slumping, so I can't simply don full hasmat and pot the whole thing up in a tub, though doubtless I may try to do something creative with large lumps of it ...
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
Important question no. 1
I have an extendable hedge trimmer with two halves that screw together but don't seem to screw apart to disassemble. Should I use:
a) wd40 - tempting but I'll swear I've been told it doesn't help in cases like this
b) graphite powder
c) 3-in-1 oil
I have a sneaking suspicion that (b) and (c) or (c) and (b) together will lead to a sludge that means it'll be stuck together permanently.
I have an extendable hedge trimmer with two halves that screw together but don't seem to screw apart to disassemble. Should I use:
a) wd40 - tempting but I'll swear I've been told it doesn't help in cases like this
b) graphite powder
c) 3-in-1 oil
I have a sneaking suspicion that (b) and (c) or (c) and (b) together will lead to a sludge that means it'll be stuck together permanently.
TopCat
Putin fanboy
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