ArticlesThere are 18 products.

• ArticleWhat are dwarfing fruit trees? How to make a prolific orchard?

  The Greek historian Theophrastus writing in about 350 BC recorded that Alexander the great sent home to Greece from Asia minor plant material of the "Spring apple", a dwarf, self rooting form of malus. This message from... Read more...

• ArticleApple Cross Pollination

  From the amount of inquiries I receive about cross pollination I’m convinced that this is a very misunderstood part of apple culture. Apples have a very large and rich genetic background just as we humans have, and this has... Read more...

• ArticleEspaliering Apricots and Plums

  We continuously receive enquiries about the possibility of espaliering stone fruit i.e. apricots and plums, and my reply is that they are far too vigorous but there aren’t any satisfactory dwarfing root stocks available for... Read more...

• ArticleReceiving Your trees

  When you receive your young trees, it’s a good idea to stand them in a bucket of water overnight. If you’re not ready to plant them you can "heel them in" a temporary position for a week or two. Just bury the roots in a pile of... Read more...

• ArticleEspaliering Made Easy

  Despite what the gardening media can imply, people who actually do produce their own food or part of it, know it is not a matter of skipping through the flower-dotted lawn to pick a perfect lettuce of a plump peach from a sweet... Read more...

• ArticleEspaliering Made Even Easier - KNNN method

  You may have noticed that there is a quiet revolution happening in gardening in Australia. It may have something to do with the environment and it may have something to do with the industrialisation of the way much of our food... Read more...

• ArticleSummer Pruning

  If nobody has any idea about cross pollination and the sexual habits of our fruit trees, just about everyone has an opinion - even people who’ve never got their hands dirty - about how to prune them. Now pruning is the process... Read more...

• ArticlePotted Fruit Trees

  Fruit trees really prefer to be planted in the ground, but in some situations it would be great to have them in pots. Although you wont get the yield or size of fruit, dwarfing fruit trees will do well either as a espalier or... Read more...

• ArticleGrowing Hazelnuts

  The Hazel is an unusual and interesting plant. There are hazel varieties native to all the temperate zones of the northern hemisphere - North America, Europe, Turnkey, China and even the Himalayas but only one (the European... Read more...

• ArticlePrice Differential in Apples or How the Apple business works (or doesn’t)

  Humans have long ago worked out how to produce apples very efficiently. So much so that we can produce as many apples per hectare as potatoes – and we reached that curious point where you can buy apples even cheaper than... Read more...

• ArticleDwarfing PearTrees

  We grow pears in dwarfing forms for the same reasons we grow other types of dwarfed trees: small trees are much more precocious in starting to bear fruit in about their third year. This is very important as pears on normal pear... Read more...

• ArticleStep-over Apples

  What are step-overs? It’s not a very gracious name for an extremely dwarf apple plant that is grown typically as a fruitful hedge or border to an ornamental vegetable garden, a potager garden. Their success is totally dependant... Read more...

• ArticleRabbits and Apple Trees

  It seems rabbits (and sometimes hares) have a definite taste for apple trees - often particularly newly planted ones during winter. We’re regularly receiving calls from people (gardeners) who have gone out one morning to find... Read more...

• ArticlePruning - why we do it

  Recently I had a Croatian chap ring me for some advice. He’d bought a Cox’s Orange and a Pine Golden Pippin from me a few years ago. They just had their first decent crop and he wanted to know what "to do" with them now. I... Read more...

• ArticleSpanish bush pruning

  The northern coast of Spain on the Bay of Biscay has a mild moist climate quite similar to southern Australia and Tasmania. Most of Spain’s dairies and apple orchards are here. There’s also a surprisingly large amount of... Read more...

• ArticlePruning - the grape story

  The grape vine is probably the plant most dependent on rigorous and hard pruning to maintain it in a vigorous cropping cycle. Have you ever seen an abandoned vineyard? It’s not very nice. In order to produce grapes we resort to... Read more...

• ArticleRootstocks explained

  A rootstock is an simply a variety selected especially for it’s disease resistance, health and vigour. These characteristics are passed onto the whole tree once the desired variety is grafted on top. Rootstocks are usually... Read more...

• ArticleWoolly Aphid and Rootstocks

  We have had enquiries lately about rootstocks resistant to woolly aphid and this article is in response to those enquiries. Woolly aphid is a very destructive insect pest that almost wiped out the apple industry here in... Read more...