Cherry and Pear
I have a new cherry tree and a new pear tree!
The cherry is a heritage Tamar Valley variety, 'Birchenhayes', named after Birchenhayes Farm down the Tamar at St Dominic. It's a mid-season flowering plant, so I'm hoping it will be pollinated either by my existing self fertile cherry 'Summer Sun', or the Landkey Mazzards I'll be planting soon. It is 'smaller growing' - ie, probably about 15 feet. The Tamar used to be famous for its cherry orchards, but most of them have been rooted out and many of the old varieties lost. There are only a couple of nurseries selling this one, it seems. Fingers crossed it will do well.
The pear is even more exciting. It's a pink flowering variety that was found growing wild on the lime kilns at Morwellham Quay, and propagated from that one plant, so the name is 'pear Morwellham'. According to the nursery, the fruit is a good sweet dessert one - although the label says 'fruit not yet tested' because apparently this one is so newly rediscovered that when they had the labels done, they hadn't actually managed to get a pear off it. Now they have, but still, nobody knows exactly how or when it is pollinated.
I'm taking a gamble that there is a pear tree somewhere near enough that it will find an acceptable partner, as I don't really have room for two pears, and even if I did there would be no guarantee that I'd actually get two that are compatible. This pear is so obscure that even the internet doesn't know it exists (until this blog post anyway)
Both of them came from the Endsleigh Gardens nursery just up the river. They are both on 'vigorous' rootstocks, so they should be fairly robust trees.
The cherry is a heritage Tamar Valley variety, 'Birchenhayes', named after Birchenhayes Farm down the Tamar at St Dominic. It's a mid-season flowering plant, so I'm hoping it will be pollinated either by my existing self fertile cherry 'Summer Sun', or the Landkey Mazzards I'll be planting soon. It is 'smaller growing' - ie, probably about 15 feet. The Tamar used to be famous for its cherry orchards, but most of them have been rooted out and many of the old varieties lost. There are only a couple of nurseries selling this one, it seems. Fingers crossed it will do well.
The pear is even more exciting. It's a pink flowering variety that was found growing wild on the lime kilns at Morwellham Quay, and propagated from that one plant, so the name is 'pear Morwellham'. According to the nursery, the fruit is a good sweet dessert one - although the label says 'fruit not yet tested' because apparently this one is so newly rediscovered that when they had the labels done, they hadn't actually managed to get a pear off it. Now they have, but still, nobody knows exactly how or when it is pollinated.
I'm taking a gamble that there is a pear tree somewhere near enough that it will find an acceptable partner, as I don't really have room for two pears, and even if I did there would be no guarantee that I'd actually get two that are compatible. This pear is so obscure that even the internet doesn't know it exists (until this blog post anyway)
Both of them came from the Endsleigh Gardens nursery just up the river. They are both on 'vigorous' rootstocks, so they should be fairly robust trees.