Andyp wrote:Bob, we have 6 different apple varieties in the garden, and 3 pear. They blossom and set fruit at different times. As Malc said a hard frost can have quite an affect on the amount of fruits and sometimes one or two trees will have barely any fruit but never all together.
Apart from the Bramley, which we planted ourselves, I have no idea what the other apples are. The pears are a little easier to identify. I only realised when we moved here that pears do not ripen on the tree. They have to be picked while still hard then allowed to soften up.
I've never really taken any interest in the neighbours trees but last year, the younger one was heavily laden and one bough bent over the fench towards us an we were able to pick and eat the fruit. They were really nice and after harvesting the bough did not straighten. This year we planned to try and thin out the fruit after setting to encourage them to grow bigger. That plan has been thwarted as there is not a single fruit forming and thinking back we can't recall seeing any blossom - usually quite striking.
Then we realised their other mature tree possibly did not blossom either hence my question if there was a known problem this year.
I will continue to buy my apples from Aldi and try and pay more attention next year.
Bob