In this timely celebration of the English orchard, Nick Mann of Habitat Aid considers their value for cooks and cider makers, their immense benefits for wildlife and their part in our cultural heritage.
I fell in love with orchards in the summer of 2001. We’d just bought a house in Somerset that came with a small, broken-down cider orchard. It was sadly neglected: the trees were unpruned and stood at drunken angles, or they had succumbed completely to lie flat out, used by the sheep as back scratchers in the June heat. Neglected it was, but not silent.
Value to wildlife
Our old orchard was full of flying, creeping, buzzing, knocking, noisy animals. It turns out that orchards are absolutely brilliant for wildlife. Pollinators, particularly bees, enjoy the spring blossom. The unimproved grassland under old orchard trees provides nest sites for some of them, and many other animals too, as well as forage from the wildflowers that grow here. It also provides a secret subterranean world for all manner of flora and fauna, since the soil is undisturbed.
Fruit trees don’t last very long and fungi flourish in their dead wood, while standing, decaying wood provides a wonderful habitat for an army of sometimes rare and always fascinating animals. Fallen fruit is an autumnal boon for all manner of mammals and birds, as well as late flying butterflies and other invertebrates.
Why plant an orchard?
I’m not suggesting you plant an orchard just to help wildlife – although it’s certainly an incentive. They are beautiful things aesthetically, for starters. A variety of trees can give you a succession of flowering for three months in spring and early summer.
Give me the simple, bee-friendly white and pale pinks of apples and plums over Japanese cherry blossom. The Victorians planted some varieties for their blossom rather than their fruit. We grow ‘Annie Elizabeth’ and ‘Lady Sudeley’ here, for their looks rather than their apples, and those odd old trees, medlars. I love my pruning too, but that’s another story.
And then there is the fruit. Varieties grown in the UK have changed a good deal over the years, and not just because their taste has improved. An apple’s keeping qualities are no longer important, for example. What modern buyers do require is varieties that won’t bruise easily or look odd. The more they resemble Snow White’s apple the better, it seems: big, red, round and sweet. Some lovely varieties have almost disappeared as a result.
History of the English orchard
Does this matter? I think so. Orchards, particularly apple orchards, have been an integral part of the British landscape for hundreds of years. The Romans understood that our temperate and wet climate ideally suited them.
After disappearing with the legions, orchards returned with the abbeys. Apples were cooked and turned into cider in the Middle Ages before the Protestants took them up. Much later, Victorian nurserymen produced exquisite varieties to compete with newly available exotic imports. Many of these varieties still serve us well today.
That some of these old varieties of apple and other fruit trees have survived is astonishing. Did you know you can buy an Isaac Newton apple tree that traces its lineage back to the very tree the great man sat beneath? You can buy the apples Cook took to Australia and the quince that Raleigh ate.
Varieties’ names sometimes tell of an almost lost rural past. Perry pears tell of local characters in the AngloWelsh borders or the effects of their product. Who was ‘Judge Amphlett’? Where was ‘Turner’s Barn’? Are ‘Dead Boy’ and ‘Merrylegs’ that efficacious?
Local and cultural significance
The charity Common Ground promotes orchards and has established Apple Day on 21 October. It’s a day for communities to celebrate the diversity and richness of their local landscape and culture. They may even have their own fruit tree variety, as well as odd traditions. Here we have various versions of wassailing, where songs are sung to the trees to guarantee a good harvest the following year.
How to plan an orchard
Autumn is a good time of year to think about planning an orchard, as the trees should be planted from November. Although climate change is already problematic for fruit trees, it’s still true that local varieties are a good bet. Trees from the west are likely to struggle more in the lower rainfall of East Anglia, for example. Modern cultivars are also available.
Ask yourself other key questions. What will you use the fruit for? A single apple tree can produce a prodigious quantity of apples (a volume far, far greater than that produced by a soft fruit tree). Would you make apple juice and freeze it? What would you use cooking apples for? Fancy making cider?
If you’re going to process the fruit in some way, be it juice or jam, you might want your trees to fruit simultaneously and have a single day of mayhem. If you want to eat it from the tree, plan a succession.
Perhaps fruit isn’t so important for you and you’re more interested in the trees’ blossom and wildlife value. We use the myrobalan plum (Prunus cerasifera) as a windbreak for our apple trees – it’s a wonderful source of early forage for bees, too.
Secondly, how big do you want the trees? Fruit trees are grafted, so you can regulate height by choosing the right rootstock. Traditionalists will grow a good sized garden apple orchard tree on MM106, the equivalent in plums of ‘Saint Julien A’. Buy the plants at one or two years old, and buy them bare root, which will mean fast and effective establishment without staking – something that is important given the increasingly extreme weather.
It’s helpful to think of a traditional pattern when planting, such as a quincunx. Reckon on at least 5-6m between trees if you’re using these rootstocks or similar, though in our orchard the spacing went a bit haywire as I sneaked in currants, cobs and filberts.
In a mixed orchard, plant different types of fruit together in small groups to improve pollination – to my mind it’s more visually attractive too. Perry pears and cherries will need considerably more room. Don’t get confused by pollination issues; nurseries will be able to tell you which trees make good partners. You can shortcut a lot of uncertainty by planting a couple of crab apples, which will crosspollinate most apple varieties.
When you’re managing your new orchard, please try to avoid fungicides and pesticides. Research suggests that in combination they’re very bad news for pollinators. Use low-nitrogen fertilisers and a sensible pruning regime to keep your new trees healthy.
Apples for your orchard
Nick recommends his favourite apples for eating, cooking, drinking or simply admiring.
Apples for blossom
Favourite cider apples
Nick Mann runs Habitat Aid, which supports conservation charities and specialist UK plant nurseries and seed suppliers. Read his award-winning blog at habitataid.co.uk/blog/.