Winter is over?
Early Fabruary and it looks like the winter is already over. Though it is still cold outside, it is not freezing anymore - time to start pruning hedges and fruit trees.
The old pear trees along the wall in front of the living room are the first ones to tackle. They have been growing at an incredible speed last year, so I decided to cut them back seriously, even though this means probably less pears the coming year - difficult balance.
Unfortunately, the espalier trees are already more than 20 years old, and close to the ground the branches have been problematic from the very beginning, when I bought them. I learned to look very critically to the quality of trees when buying new ones for our orchard. But for the garden, I decided to leave the trees as they are - anyway, we had lots of pears last year, as it was an excellent fruit year - with a slow start, now frost when the trees were blossoming and setting fruit. Keep fingers crossed for the coming months.
Yes, you still have time to buy new fruit trees. My advice:
First of all decide what you would like to buy and make sure it will grow on your ground.
Don’t rush. In princiiple you still lhave time till end of March to plant bare root fruit trees.
Choose fruit trees that will grow well in your soil - and look for types that are probably less common and might have an interesting taste - something you can’t buy in the shop.
Carefully select the tree nursery and make sure is has sufficient choice and a good reputation! Don’t buy fruit trees in a supermarket or without knowing well what you are buying.
As soon as you have them delivered, plant them. If you don’t have the time for it or if it would be freezing again, put them aside well protected, preferably on their side in the ground and cover the roots with soil. They can stay like that as long as needed.
