The last pear of 2009

Just eaten the last pear in store, a Winter Nellis. Very soft, sweet, juicy and fragrant. No more home-grown pears now until August.

Snow

Any plans to do any work have been put back by the snow. I forgot to grease any of the trees, because I was too ill and distracted before Christmas. I was planning to spray with a winter wash as part of the war against pests, but it will be a while before the ground condition will allow now, even when the snow eventually disappears.

Beurré Gris d'Hiver Nouveau

Only one of these, but a large pear similar in size and shape to Comice. I wasn't able to eat any, but my husbands verdict was sweet, very juicy with a buttery quality, but also slightly coarse and gritty, especially near the core.

Foliage: Beurré Hardy

Beurré Hardy is well-known for good foliage colour, and doesn't disappoint. The older leaves are a rich burgundy, the younger ones a mixture of coral and orange. They haven't withstood the recent winds as well as the others, disappointingly. I think the autumn effect would be a lot greater as a half-standard, and Beurré Hardy is really far too vigourous to enjoy life as a step-over (only because I had to move it rapidly from the sheep-vandalised orchard, and had only a limited space for it). I will leave it for the present, but will propagate another if I have rootstocks and space to spare.

Foliage: Red Comice

Not as highly coloured as the spring foliage or it's neighbours Fondante d'Automne and Beurré Hardy, but still a nice, even mid-orange hue. There are quite a few Nerine Bowdenii growing nearby, obscured in this photograph. Not really sure whether the dark pink complements or clashes with the foliage colour!

Foliage: Fondante d' Automne

Really pleased with the colouring of Fondante d'Automne, almost rainbow-like with more orangey hues at the top and rich burgundy red at the bottom. Need to do something about finding a more robust frame for my spiral pyramid; either that or sort out the dangerous subsidence that seems to be affecting my house LOL!

Foliage colour: Dr Jules' sport

Another interesting instance of colour. The portion of the Dr Jules Guyot cordon that seems to be a bud sport is showing much greater and earlier Autumn colour than the parent.

Foliage Colour: Beth/Gorham

One of the many qualities of pears I prefer to those of apples is their ability to colour nicely in Autumn. Not all are as good as others, so I'll just pick out those that are better than average.

Beth goes a nice shade of buttery yellow, but this year has been out done by the scion of Gorham I grafted on, shown on the top photo. If you look at the other one, the limb of Gorham is the top right oblique limb; the next one along is a full cordon of Beth, which is a little behind on colouring (the shape is a sort of bent Y, as a full double V wasn't possible a the end of the line). The other cordons are Conference, Concorde and Comice, in that order, which haven't started to fall or colour at all yet.

Rootstocks

As the days draw in, thought turn to next years planting and in turn, what I'll graft it on to. Fingers crossed but it seems we may have extra ground to plant up soon, and it makes sense to carry on the theme of decorative trained forms with quite a high planting density.

I used to get my rootstocks from Deacon's but since I've found that they have supplied me with so many wrong varieties in past years, and won't answer my correspondence on this matter, I feel disinclined to give them any more of my custon. I contacted Frank Matthews, who will supply EMLA stocks in reasonably small quantities, a minimum of 10 per type. I've emailed a couple of other suppliers, but no reply so far. 

Most of what I'll need are Quince A. Although I started off with QC originally, I made a conscious decision to change as there isn't a lot of difference in vigour (of my original cordon of 4 pears, I now cannot tell the difference between the 3 on QC and the one on QA in size; the bark splitting on the former is a good indication however). I also now find that some QC stocks weren't virus free in the past.

Apples are more of a problem. I don't like M26 for reasons given earlier (lack of vigour, late onset of fruiting, breaking branches, rampant suckering and susceptibility to woolly aphid). However, it is marginally more damp tolerant than MM106, something I can vouch for having not having lost any trees when had 18" of standing flood water for 2 months in the summer of 2007. I'm impressed with the productivity and growth habit M27, and would certainly use this if planting apple cordons now, but I would like a couple more half-standard apples to include some tip-bearing varieties I haven't had room for before. 

The best apple stock for damp conditions appears to be M111 inter-scions. I will have to look into these further as it's a certainty that we are flooded at least once a year.

more on rootstocks/propagation:

http://wapedia.mobi/en/Fruit_tree_propagation#3.

http://www.acnursery.com/rootstock.php

Cox's Orange Pippin

My in-law's half-standard cox appears to have a bumper crop this year and looks surprisingly healthy and well-ripened, considering the rather shady location (though my attempts to keep the habit nice and open may have contributed a little). It has been a little prone to scab and mildew in previous years.