Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: white westie on May 01, 2011, 23:51
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Hello i have a patio pear tree that i bought three years ago from a mail order book.I cant remember what the tree was called though.The first year it had no pears,the second year it had two pears this year it has one pear.It is in a pot on my patio and is about 4ft high.Should i cut it back this autumn?Why is it not giving me any pears does any one know.
Thankyou Rita.
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My 2 pear trees didn't start to produce a decent crop until after 5 years - compared to the apple trees planted at the same time, I began to wonder if I'd ever see fruit but then in the 3rd year, I found a pear! The following year a few more, and thereafter both trees have been quite reliable. I think pear trees are just a bit slow to fruit - maybe they need to get a good root system first, I don't know. They seemed to produce lots of flowers each year so it did seem strange that fruit didn't start setting until the trees were established.
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In addition to the above comment, what sort of compost is it in (multipurpose, John Innes #3 etc), how big is the pot, and are you feeding it - and if so, with what?
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Pears are notoriously slow to crop. Dwarfing rootstocks improves them a bit, but one of our trees took over ten years to bear anything although it looked wonderful in flower - which is what saved its life, I thought of it as an ornamental. It now crops very regularly.
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I have a row of espalier pears which i have trained from whips so i have learnt how to prune. 4 years later they are nearly how i want them.
does it say not to prune it on the ticket?
If it does not. choose the branches that you think hive it a nice shape. It is good to have air flow through the middle though.
cut all the side shoots to three buds in length and keep to this system. It works for me. I am not an expert i just follow the rules.
Apart from doing this with the new growth (green shoots). you may want to leave a major hardwood prune until january. don't leave it any longer because pears spring into regrowth very early.
I hope this helps.