I don't know how they rate your fertilizer in Scotland. Here they rate it
10-10-10, 5-10-10, and so on. The first number is the percent of nitrogen
content, the second is the phosphate indicator, and I believe the last is
sulfate. The super phosphate I spoke of is 0-46-0 or higher.
Don't put it down until you have confirmed that your soil needs it.

Some years the weather plays an important part in what your trees do. I
don't know about apples, but I do know that if the winter temp gets to -16 F
and stays for longer than 45 minutes, the flower buds on peach trees will
freeze and you will get no blooms.

Dwayne



"gdd001" wrote in message
lkaboutgardening.com...
Thank you for the replies - to answer those who in turn queried - we live
in Edinburgh,Scotland and have not had the soil tested;do not think the
tree has a name,as I said it is a hybrid with 3 different types of
apples,1 cooking the other 2 eating and it does flower at more or less the
same time as the other one but they do not flourish to fruit and finally I
do not feel we are pruning too hard.
So as you can see quite a problem!