bare root fruit trees

[wrathkeg]

I'm looking to buy some bare root fruit trees to plant in the winter. Of course there are loads of places online that do these, but I wonder if anyone has any experiences of good/bad places to buy from? Or is it better to try to find somewhere local?

 

[Deleted2797112]

I bought 13 in February this year which I'm growing as cordons and fans - apples, pears, plums, cherries. They were two year old trees so a little more advanced than I would have preferred but with pruning they're training up fine. I paid the princely sum of £3.99 each from Aldi! I was at the shop door waiting for it to open on the day they went on sale. They're all named varieties and mostly the more reliable/troublefree types, grown in Holland (I think). There isn't a duff one amongst them, they've all romped away.

I'm also a fan of Blackmoor and over the years I've also bought from Ken Muir, good but pricey ditto Pomona. I'd probably steer clear of the generalist suppliers like T&M though.

 

[r896neo]

i have had quite a few along with lots of other great stuff from parkers wholesale catalogue. Its great because you can get lots of varieties and similar to ceres the low price means they are quite fun to experiment with. I'm getting some from them this year to try and make step overs.

The website is www.dutchbulbs.co.uk no the normal jparkers site

 

[Deleted2797112]

I'm getting some from them this year to try and make step overs.

Do post about this please - stepovers are getting near the top of my (Try) To Do list!

 

[wrathkeg]

Many thanks for these responses. This was exactly the kind of info I was hoping to get. It's interesting to hear that even somewhat unlikely sources can be worth a try. I'll check out all the online sources suggested too.

Ceres: you mention suppliers like T&M. Yesterday the DT Brown 2015 seed catalogue came through my door which prompted me to try to find out more about suppliers. I've always been happy with their seeds, but looking at their fruit trees noticed that they don't ship bare root trees until March at the earliest which seems much later than other suppliers - and much later than most books recommend planting them.

r896neo: I was lucky enough to get a free tour of the late Geoff Hamilton's gardens at Barnsdale by one of the volunteers. He said that people ask him more questions about their stepover apples than any other specimen at Barnsdale, so if you succeed you'll likely have a talking point as well as some apples.