Nurture a pear tree to a decent harvest and you enjoy none of the instant pleasure of apples, as most varieties are picked firm to develop in storage-after which the fruit will ripen from not-quite there to squish when you pop to the shops for 10 minutes. Here in rainy south-west England, pear trees grow well enough, but, no matter how well I care for them, they look at me as the dog does after a fun walk on the beach with his favourite ball punctuated by a handful of treats: as if I've subjected him to a long and systematic programme of mistreatment.
After all that, why grow them, you may ask. Because, when you get a pear at its perfect peak, when it surrenders with merely the pretence of resistance, when its juice runs sweet and luscious, you forget its nuisances.
Pears like things just so; a sheltered, sunny location with a fertile, well-drained soil, ideally of neutral or slightly acidic pH is best. When planting, be particularly careful to clear a circumference of a yard around the trunk to minimise competition: mulch this with compost or well-rotted manure every late winter or early spring to help retain moisture and feed the tree. As much as it can be rainy here in Devon, I've noticed that watering pears through extended dry spells in summer makes more difference to fruit retention and tree health than with most other fruit trees.
Most pears need another variety for pollination; some varieties are self-fertile to varying degrees, but even they are more productive with a suitable neighbour.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة October 05, 2022 من Country Life UK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة October 05, 2022 من Country Life UK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Give it some stick
Galloping through the imagination, competitive hobby-horsing is a gymnastic sport on the rise in Britain, discovers Sybilla Hart
Paper escapes
Steven King selects his best travel books of 2024
For love, not money
This year may have marked the end of brag-art’, bought merely to show off one’s wealth. It’s time for a return to looking for connoisseurship, beauty and taste
Mary I: more bruised than bloody
Cast as a sanguinary tyrant, our first Queen Regnant may not deserve her brutal reputation, believes Geoffrey Munn
A love supreme
Art brought together 19th-century Norwich couple Joseph and Emily Stannard, who shared a passion for painting, but their destiny would be dramatically different
Private views
One of the best ways-often the only way-to visit the finest privately owned gardens in the country is by joining an exclusive tour. Non Morris does exactly that
Shhhhhh...
THERE is great delight to be had poring over the front pages of COUNTRY LIFE each week, dreaming of what life would be like in a Scottish castle (so reasonably priced, but do bear in mind the midges) or a townhouse in London’s Eaton Square (worth a king’s ransom, but, oh dear, the traffic) or perhaps that cottage in the Cotswolds (if you don’t mind standing next to Hollywood A-listers in the queue at Daylesford). The estate agent’s particulars will give you details of acreage, proximity to schools and railway stations, but never—no, never—an indication of noise levels.
Mission impossible
Rubble and ruin were all that remained of the early-19th-century Villa Frere and its gardens, planted by the English diplomat John Hookham Frere, until a group of dedicated volunteers came to its rescue. Josephine Tyndale-Biscoe tells the story
When a perfect storm hits
Weather, wars, elections and financial uncertainty all conspired against high-end house sales this year, but there were still some spectacular deals
Give the dog a bone
Man's best friend still needs to eat like its Lupus forebears, believes Jonathan Self, when it's not guarding food, greeting us or destroying our upholstery, of course
