This is the fourth in a series of seasonal articles intended to help you care for your young fruit tree. We will guide you through the winter months, with advice on what you can do each month to support your tree, as well as other things to watch out for in the garden.
January & February
Fruit tree tasks:
- Winter is the best time to plant bare root trees!
- Now is also the best time to prune apple and pear trees, while they are dormant. Do this preferably during dry, frost-free weather. Find thorough pruning advice here
- NOTE - stone fruits (plums, damsons, gages and cherries) should only be pruned in summer between May and September, to minimise the risk of silver leaf infection
- The dormant period is also the time to cut scion wood for grafting
- Check stakes and ties. Make sure the supporting stakes have not rotted off at ground level. Loosen ties where needed, if too tight
- Peaches, nectarines and apricots are approaching the pink bud stage. If the trees are outside and not under cover, they should be covered using a double layer of garden fleece, to stop the frost destroying the blossom buds/flowers. When it is a nice sunny day and the flowers have opened, don’t forget to uncover the trees for pollination to take place
Elsewhere in the garden:
- Watch out for winter flockings of redwings and fieldfares
- Keep your eyes peeled fo the orange, white and black of brambling, a chaffinch-sized visitor
- Start a wildlife diary for the year. Use it to record what, where and when you see wildlife in your garden
- Hazel catkins start opening out and you should start seeing other early signs of spring like snowdrops
- Mistle and song thrushes sing to declare their territories
March
Fruit tree tasks:
- As the sap rises in your trees, now is a good time to be grafting. Grafting new trees by bench grafting methods such as the whip and tongue graft can be done at any time over the dormant season. However as long as you have dormant scion-wood it is great to graft in the early spring
- Formative prune plums, cherries, apricots, peaches and nectarines
- You can also mulch young trees, or those that have had a hard winter prune. Apply compost or manure to the soil at the base of your tree
- Finish pruning your apple and pear trees
- Finish planting bare-rooted trees. It is essential to make sure that late-planted fruit trees do not dry out - mulch with wet straw, hay or well-rotted compost or manure, and keep the tree roots well watered on a weekly basis
Elsewhere in the garden:
- Daffodils and crocuses start coming into full bloom
- Keep an eye out for ‘mad March hares’ leaping in the air, chasing and ‘boxing’ each other
- Blackthorn will be in flower in the hedgerows across the countryside
- Bumblebees and ladybirds start to emerge on warmer days
- Male chaffinches are tuning up for spring, delivering ‘weet’ calls from prominent perches
- Look out for is the chestnut moth, which has distinctive round-edged wings and often visits sallow blossom. The females will soon hunt for birch and oak leaves on which to lay their eggs