Saturday Morning With Jack Tame

Fruit trees for the smaller garden (and balcony!) With the tinyfication of backyards, sections and driveways there is often no room for a grand-old apple tree, or grapefruit tree, let alone a majestic pear tree or Plum.  Which is why many growers designed the dwarf varieties in apples, plums/nectarines/peaches and other types of fruit trees. These trees are grafted on normal rootstock, giving the tree a good spread of roots underground; but it is the dwarf varieties that limit their own growth. It keeps them small and dense/compact in growth habit, saving heaps of space.  Another way to achieve this is by growing “normal” varieties on dwarfing rootstock. Yes, that rootstock inhibits the normally expansive growth of the fruit tree. Some of these dwarfing rootstocks really limit heights to a few meters only, making it easy to pick the fruit at harvest. Oh, by the way: the fruit is normal size! We often had “Flying Dragon” rootstock under our lemons and mandarins – that’s been around for ages!  The two methods d