With support from Worcester City Council via an environmental grant, our orchard garden contains several dozen fruit trees in a relatively small space.
Because we have to deal with flooding each year, our volunteers moved several tons of topsoil into the orchard garden prior to the trees being planted, in the hope that the new trees would be better able to survive future floods. So far, they have done so.
In this small garden space our apple trees are being grown along horizontal wires as cordons, meaning we can grow more fruit trees in less space. Planting the cordons at an angle slows their rate of growth and also increases the length of the stem, and hence the number of fruits produced.
For our small trees, we use MM106 rootstock. For even smaller trees, try using M26 rootstock.
Amongst the apple varieties growing in our orchard garden are:
- Tydeman’s Early Worcester
- Spartan
- Sturmer Pippin
- Court Pendu Plat
- Greensleeves
- Pixie
- Orleans Reinette
There are also plum and damson trees in the orchard, along with some soft fruit.