Fruit Tree Suggestions Please

No, I don't grow grass up to the trees, and of course I dug organic matter in, but not farmyard manure, which is too nitrogen rich for these wet conditions.   I assure you that the clay here and the wet West British coastal weather has more effect on killing fruit trees than anything else.   I used to have a clay soil allotment in the South East, and it was a picnic compared to this.   Clay soil that has NEVER been cultivated is the next best thing to cement dust.   Adding compost isn't enough, it has to be LIVING compost, not the sterile stuff.   

The trouble with fruit trees in Britain is all the development on varieties and rootstocks happens in KENT, which as everybody knows, is the balmiest, driest, most calcium rich part of the country.    Apple varieties that once were suited to the wet West British climate, and its more acid soils, have long been lost because the entire country focussed on darling little Kent.

Old fruit varieties like Old Greengage are difficult because the diseases have evolved  a lot since they were selected.  Unless you lve in disease free conditions, for example surrounded by several square miles of industrially farmed arable fields, with free draining soil and a south facing slope.   I bought into the whole heritage and lost varieties thing decades ago, and I know why they were heritage varieties.  It wasn't always because they weren't suited to tractor farming.   For example, old potato varieties have more problems with blight and other diseases than the newer ones.

When I read gardening advice in the papers, it is always from some dolly who lives in the sunny easy South East, who thinks their advice applies to the whole country.  It doesn't.   The South East has a different climate from the rest of the country, and even with climate change, it will keep a huge difference.

I really think it is important to be honest with people that being organic AND Nature friendly ALL THE TIME is a major challenge.  For example, most of the ORGANIC stuff that is being produced for the market these days is grown in Polytunnels, which are not natural, and not as nature friendly as growing stuff in the ground. 

There is nothing wrong with telling people the reality of things.   They aren't so weak-minded that they can't make a choice for themselves, I think.

Thanks to everyone for the advice