There are sloes just coming into blossom in the hedges in Kent, the ornamental pear, Pyrus calleryana has a few flowers, I have daffodils out and primroses, yet it is only the first week in February. It looks as if it will be an early year for fruit blossom. The myrobalan or cherry plum is one of the first to flower and used to be taken as a foretaste of what was to come in orchards. There are two myrobalan plums beginning to flower in the National Fruit Collections – the very early Belsiana and Burrell’s Red. Are there myrobalans in flower anywhere else?
Joan Morgan
Hedgerow plum in full bloom on 4 February in south east London
(see comment below)
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We have cherry plums in two parts of the garden (in Kent) and this year both have flowered earlier than ever before. One, which first bloomed in 2004, came into flower on 28 January this year. Others, in a less sheltered area, flowered this year on 6 February, the earliest I have known since I began keeping records in 1989, the previous earliest date being 7 February in 1993 and, after that, 14 February in 2004 – the latest was 5 April in 1996. Sloes, however, usually bloom a couple of weeks after the cherry plums in our garden and show no sign of flowering yet. We also have wallflowers (red and yellow) which have been out continuously since before Christmas.
A hedgerow plum growing at the Woodlands urban farm on Shooters Hill, south east London was well in flower by 4th February when the picture was taken, and a splendid site it was. I have not seen it in fruit so I can’t be sure what it is, though the description I got from people on the farm made it sound more like a bullace than a cherry plum. More news later in the year perhaps. The farm is in a surprising expanse of countryside, meadows and woodlands, within the conurbation and the whole area is well worth a visit.
Whilst no doubt the inhabitants of the semi-tropical climate of the Garden of Eden bask in the warm sun, spare a thought for the amateur fruit growers of the colder, frost prone areas of Surrey, where ‘Horsiculture’ takes the place of orchards.
Being one of those unfortunates, I know that however mild the winter has been, bringing blossoms ever earlier, when the majority of plums are in full bloom, there will inevitably be a warm cloudless day followed by a night frost of some – 5 C. Given that plum blossom will be slightly damaged at -1C and completely destroyed at – 2.5 C, one can write off a crop for that year.
The best crop of apricots I ever saw was in the 1980s at RHS Gardens Wisley, following a very cold winter with plenty of snow, which lasted until April. The blossoms opened to enjoy two weeks of unbroken warm sunshine and the trees bent down with the weight of crop. Never again did they so crop.
This weekend (16 February) the camellia blossom on Battleston Hill was mostly brown, but on a sheltered spot the majestic tree of ‘Acacia delabata’, which started blooming very early at the end of January, was largely unscathed.
My pear, Beurré Precoce de Morettini, is in light flower already – 16 February – in Nottingham! The tree is an oblique cordon against post and wires and not at all protected, but I think that it has flowered this early in previous mild winters. I imagine that the ‘Precoce’ refers to its blossom and not its fruiting season, which is August and not very early.
My apricot, Tomcot, which is outside but in a sheltered position, is now in full flower. With the recent hard frost over night I doubt I will get any harvest this year, despite hand pollinating. Fortunately the peaches and necturine in the cold greenhouse are still rather shy.
Jargonelle pear just about breaking bud in an orchard on the Fens on 14 March. It will be sorry, and so will I, as it is my best early pear!
A close look at the buds on damson trees in sunny positions in the Lyth Valley, Westmorland will detect minute signs of awakening now – late March. The traditional date for the blossom to be out in the South Lakes is April 18, one day before our 2008 Damson Day. One wonders after last year’s heavy crop how big the crop will be this year. It would be unusual to have two good years running.
Damsons, according to one authority, have a minimum winter chilling requirement of between 700 and 1000 hours (29-41 days) below 7 degrees C (45 degrees F). It seems unlikely in this wet mild winter that this will have been achieved. However, a mild winter is probably better than hard frost at blossom time. Who knows what nature has in store and how many damson trees came down in earlier gales.
It is many years since bonfires were lit in orchards to prevent frost forming on the blossom. A correspondent sent me an article which suggested that smoke from the bonfires was as effective as the rising heat for protecting the blossom. Sounds unlikely but it may have been that the frost forms around the smoke particles and falls to the ground as fine snow rather than building up on the flowers.
Smouldering straw bales were said to have been used. In the diaries of early damson buyers from Lancashire there are reports of seeing bonfires flickering in the distance as the Lyth Valley was approached about Scout Scar. Some of these old orchard tricks have passed from living memory, more’s the pity.
Westmorland Damson Association
(Damson Day 2008: Saturday 19 April Low Farm, Lyth, Westmorland; for details see http://www.lythdamsons.org.uk/damsonday.asp and Fruit Diary on the main Fruit Forum web-site)