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FAMILY TREES. Demand and general interest in Family trees (sometimes also called ‘Everyman’s Orchard’) has inspired us to produce more varieties. Family trees are in fact trees with a single rootstock, upon which is grafted either two, three, four, five and six compatible flowering varieties, so that space is saved in the garden and a greater choice of variety to pick from is available. In fact, of course, you could have sixteen varieties, which will only occupy the space of four trees! See variety list for details of individual cultivars. These are young bush, pruned ready for planting. Also, in case your labels get lost in the future, the first named cultivar is always first on the trunk and the last is always on the top. That is, with reference to our catalogue: Cox/Grenadier/James Grieve indicates Cox is nearest the soil (i.e. the first graft on the stock), Grenadier is in the middle and James Grieve is the top graft. A significant advantage to Family trees is the ease with which bees will pollinate the whole tree and hence all varieties get a good fruit set, as all the blossom is together and the bees move easily over all varieties. A bee on one trip only forages over a very small area.
It has been proved in commercial orchards, where pollinators are strategically planted, that the bees get selective and will leave some batches of trees alone, because the flowers are not so enticing, but a single tree with no others around is the bees only source on one trip, so it forages throughout the whole tree and hence good pollination.