On Mon, 10 Oct 2005, Janet Galpin wrote:

Is this true that 90% of UK varieties are unnamed. I have two apple
trees which were apparently part of a job lot of otherwise native
species planted as a small spinney by the previous owners of my house.
I sent the apples to be identified by RHS and they reckoned one was
James Grieve and the other American Mother. They clearly aren't though
and they have defied my efforts to identify them. The 'Mother' apples
are especially good.
How do these unnamed varieties come about and then come to be sold on? I
imagine mine was a part of a very cheap selection. The owner didn't even
realise he'd planted any apples in with the oaks, maples, ashes etc. I
can't see any sign of grafting either, so wonder whether they could just
have been grown from seed

My garden used to be part of my neighbour's garden and, when he had it,
he planted two apple and one pear tree. He told me once that he had
grown the pear tree from seed and I guess that he did the same with the
apple trees because all three were/are of a variety completely unknown
to anyone that I've asked. (I say were/are because the pear tree blew
down in the gales of 1987.)

They were/are very pleasant fruit nevertheless but the biggest problem
was that he had trained them as dwarf trees, but when I came to take
them over it rapidly became apparent that they weren't! It's an annual
fight to keep these trees under control. By contrast, the dwarf Cox
Orange that I bought looks a wizened little thing!

David

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