← The orchard
H12-01 · Module 1 of 7 · Pages: 23 · Worksheets: 6
Planning an orchard: species, varieties and rootstocks
How many trees a family needs, which species and heritage varieties, on which rootstock and at what spacing — before you buy the first tree
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In short
- An adult eats and preserves roughly 75 kg (165 lb) of fruit a year; about 70 % comes from trees, the rest from soft fruit.
- A family of four in lowland UK and Ireland needs roughly 7–8 trees of medium vigour.
- Site matters more than variety: never plant fruit in a frost pocket or on waterlogged ground.
- Heritage varieties are hardier and longer-lived, but start cropping later and need more room.
- The rootstock sets the size of the tree, the spacing, the first crop and how much water it needs.
- Most apples, pears and sweet cherries need a pollination partner: another variety that flowers at the same time.
What's inside
Chapters
- How much fruit a family needs
- Site: sun, frost, soil and water
- Species for your climate
- Heritage varieties
- Rootstocks: what kind of tree do you want
- Pollination: no apple is an island
- Laying out the orchard on your land
- Buying trees
- Common mistakes
- Printable checklist
Worksheets
- Planting plan
- Tree calculator
- Choosing varieties and pollinators
- Questions for the nursery
- The orchard planning year
- Tree register
Fields and checkboxes can be filled in with Adobe Acrobat Reader (desktop and mobile), and the calculator adds up by itself. Filling in may not work in some browsers. A print version comes with the screen PDF.
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