Growing fruit trees in a UK garden

So you fancy growing your own fruit. Good call. A well-chosen tree will crop for decades, needs surprisingly little once it's settled in, and gives you fruit that actually tastes of something. The trick is getting a couple of early decisions right. Get those sorted and the rest is mostly patience.

What fruit can you actually grow in a UK garden?

Loads, as it happens. Our cool, damp climate is ideal for the classic hardy fruits, and you don't need a south-facing sun trap for most of them.

Apples are the obvious starting point. They're tough, forgiving, and available in a size to suit any space. Pears are nearly as easy, though they flower a little earlier so are slightly more prone to frost. Plums, gages and damsons are brilliant value because most are self-fertile, meaning a single tree will crop on its own. Cherries used to be giants, but modern dwarfing rootstocks have brought them within reach of a normal garden.

If you're in a colder or more exposed spot, lean towards apples, plums and damsons, which shrug off tough conditions. Save the fussier stuff like peaches, apricots and dessert cherries for a sheltered, sunny wall. And do check what already grows well in your area. If every garden on the street has an apple tree, that's a strong hint.

Why does rootstock matter more than the variety?

Here's the thing nobody tells beginners. Almost every fruit tree you buy is two plants joined together. The top half is the variety you want, say a 'Cox' apple, and it's grafted onto a root system, the rootstock, from a different plant chosen purely to control the tree's size and vigour.

This matters enormously. The exact same 'Cox' apple could grow into a tidy 1.5m bush or a 5m monster, depending entirely on its rootstock. So when you're buying, the rootstock code is the most important thing on the label.

The variety decides what your fruit tastes like. The rootstock decides whether it fits your garden.

For apples, the common ones, smallest first, are roughly:

• M27 (very dwarfing): around 1.2 to 1.8m. Perfect for pots and tiny plots, but needs good soil and staking for life.
• M9 (dwarfing): around 1.8 to 2.4m. A superb choice for small gardens and cordons.
• M26 (dwarfing): around 2.4 to 3m. A good all-round garden bush tree.
• MM106 (semi-vigorous): around 3 to 4m. The most widely sold rootstock, but really too big for a small garden.
• M25 (vigorous): 4.5m and up. A proper orchard standard tree.

The other fruits have their own equivalents. Pears come on Quince C (about 2.5 to 3m) or the more common Quince A (3 to 4.5m). Plums use dwarfing Pixy (around 3m) or the more usual St Julien A (4.5 to 5m). Cherries are best on Gisela 5 for gardens, keeping them to about 2.4 to 3m, rather than vigorous Colt which reaches 6m or more.

Do you need two trees to get fruit?

Often, yes, and this catches people out. Many fruit trees can't pollinate their own flowers, so they need pollen from a different variety of the same fruit, flowering at the same time, growing somewhere nearby.

To make this manageable, the RHS sorts varieties into flowering groups, numbered 1 (earliest) to 7 (latest). A tree will happily pollinate anything in its own group, or in the group either side of it. So a group 3 apple will pair with another group 2, 3 or 4 apple.

The good news is you rarely need to plant two trees yourself. Bees travel a fair distance, and any compatible apple within about 18m does the job. That includes your neighbours' trees and even wild or ornamental crab apples, which are pollination machines. In most streets there's enough fruit blossom about to sort you out.

Some shortcuts are worth knowing. Most plums and gages are self-fertile, with 'Victoria' the famous example, so a single tree crops fine. Among cherries, 'Stella' is self-fertile too. Watch out for triploid apples like 'Bramley's Seedling', though. They produce useless pollen, so they can't pollinate anything and still need two other compatible trees to fruit themselves. Not a great first tree unless you've got the room.

When and how do you plant a fruit tree?

Timing first. The best and cheapest way to buy a fruit tree is bare-root, lifted from the field while dormant and sold without a pot. The season for this runs from about November to March. Plant any time in that window when the soil isn't frozen solid or a swamp. Container-grown trees can go in at any time of year, but they cost more and, honestly, an autumn-planted bare-root tree usually races ahead.

Here's the planting sequence for a bare-root tree.

1. 1

   Soak the roots

   Stand the roots in a bucket of water for an hour or two before planting so they go in fully hydrated. Never let them dry out in the wind while you dig.

2. 2

   Dig a wide, shallow hole

   Make it wide enough to spread the roots out fully, but no deeper than the roots need. You want the old soil mark on the stem to sit level with the ground. Loosen the sides and base of the hole.

3. 3

   Drive in a stake

   Knock a stake into firm, undisturbed soil at the edge of the hole before the tree goes in, so you don't spear the roots. A low stake at about a third of the tree's height is fine for most.

4. 4

   Position and backfill

   Set the tree in, spread the roots, and check the graft union (the bulge low on the stem) stays well above soil level. Backfill with the excavated soil, firming gently as you go to knock out air pockets.

5. 5

   Secure and water

   Tie the tree to the stake with a proper buffered tree tie, snug but not throttling. Water in thoroughly to settle the soil around the roots.

6. 6

   Mulch

   Spread a good layer of compost or well-rotted manure around the base to lock in moisture and suppress weeds. Keep it clear of the stem itself so the bark doesn't rot.

Pick a spot in full sun if you can, with shelter from strong wind, and enough room for the tree to reach its full size without crowding a fence or path.

How do you grow fruit trees in a small garden?

This is where fruit growing gets clever. You don't need a lawn to fill. Trained forms let you grow a proper cropping tree flat against a wall or fence, or in a single pot.

• Cordons are single stems planted at 45 degrees and pruned tight, so you can line several varieties along a 2m fence and sort out pollination in one go.
• Espaliers train the branches into neat horizontal tiers against a wall. Beautiful, productive, and a real feature.
• Fans suit plums and cherries especially, spreading branches out flat against a warm wall.
• Stepovers are knee-high single-tier cordons that edge a path or bed. Grown on M27, they're pure novelty and pure charm.
• Patio pots work brilliantly for a dwarf apple on M27 or M9, or a cherry on Gisela 5. Use a container at least 45cm across, a soil-based compost like John Innes No.3, and don't let it dry out.

The one rule with pots and trained trees is that dwarfing rootstocks have weak roots, so they need permanent staking and never get to fend for themselves on water. Stay on top of both and they'll reward you.

What does a young tree need in its first year?

Not much, but the little it needs, it really needs. The single biggest cause of young-tree failure is drought in that first summer.

Water is non-negotiable. Any tree planted in the last 12 months should be watered whenever there's a dry spell of more than a couple of weeks, right through spring and summer. Trees near walls or on dwarfing rootstocks dry out fastest, so watch those closely. A weekly soaking beats a daily splash.

Keep a circle of about a metre around the trunk clear of grass and weeds, which otherwise steal water and nutrients. Top up the mulch each spring. And here's a hard bit of discipline. If your tree flowers in its first spring, pinch the blossom off. Letting a young tree fruit too early diverts energy it needs for roots and framework. Skip one crop now for years of better ones later.

What can go wrong, and how do you fix it?

Fruit trees are hardy, but a few things trip up beginners.

No fruit is the classic worry. Usually it's simply age, especially on vigorous rootstocks that take four or five years. Otherwise, check pollination, and suspect a late frost, which can wipe out a whole year's blossom overnight. Throwing horticultural fleece over a small tree on a frosty spring night is cheap insurance.

Aphids curl new leaves in spring and codling moth grubs tunnel into apples. Both are common and rarely fatal. Encourage birds and ladybirds, and hang codling moth traps in late spring if you're bothered. Apple scab and brown rot show up in wet summers as blotched leaves or rotting fruit. Clear up fallen leaves and mummified fruit to break the cycle, and choose disease-resistant varieties if you're planting fresh.

None of this should put you off. A fruit tree is one of the most rewarding things you can plant, it asks very little, and it just keeps giving. Get the rootstock and pollination right, plant it well this winter, and future you will be very glad you did.