Fruit trees dying
 

After successfully establishing a peach tree on the western wall of my house (going strong after 5 years), I had the idea of a row of stone-fruit trees on the south wall. Location is in the Chilterns in Bucks, at about 450 feet/135m. I have apple, pear and plum trees growing well down the garden. No chalk here, rhodies can be grown.

Last year I planted a cherry (Sunburst), apricot (Moor Park) and a plum (Early Transparent Gage) against the wall. The cherry shrivelled and died, which I attributed to forgetting to water it enough, so this year I replaced it and also fitted in another plum (Coe’s Golden Drop). In digging up the first cherry, I noticed that the roots had hardly developed from the original bare-rooted plant I planted. All were maiden bare-rooted plants from Keepers Nursery, from whom all previous purchases have 100% success rate in my garden, and both my parents' gardens.

This year the new cherry produced lots of lovely leaves about 3 or 4 weeks after planting, and then a couple of weeks later they all went limp, and subsequently dried up and died. The branches have turned to dead sticks very quickly in the recent hot weather. Since this going limp happened in May (lots of rain), and the soil was well hydrated before that, I can’t attribute it to forgetting to water it. The new plum also came beautifully into leaf, then many of the leaves turned yellow, looking very sick, and those yellowed leaves died. The remaining leaves initially looked OK, but they have now also shrivelled up. The apricot which made it through last year flowered in April/May, but hasn’t produced a single leaf, so I presume it will soon die. It is in the sunniest location on the wall. The plum which made it through last year, this winter all the new buds died, but the wood was still green under the bark in early May. However no new buds formed and it now looks dead. All five gone.

This almost windowless south-facing white-painted wall is in a 2m wide corridor facing the next-door neighbour. But next-door is a bungalow and about a foot lower than me, and I have discovered that the wall receives plenty of sunshine for much of the year, especially April-October, albeit not in the bottom few feet. The actual ground at the foot of the wall receives little sunshine. I have covered the ground with weed-excluding fabric and covered that with purple slate scree. Prior to putting on the weed-excluding fabric, very many poppies grew there, so it isn't totally dark and dank.

Generally the soil in my garden is a light sandy pebbly loam overlying a heavier clay soil with many stones about 2 to 3 feet down. However alongside the house, the clay is close to the surface, perhaps having been dug up from the foundations. I also observe a thin layer of what might be coal-dust about a foot down in this area. In planting these trees, I dug over-size holes, threw out all the stones, and added plenty of well-rotted compost seasoned with sand and perlite for improved drainage and fertility, a very time-consuming job, but a policy that has resulted in very successful plant establishment elsewhere in the garden, in comparison to the earlier period when I dug minimal holes and threw the stones back in. The planting holes were then covered with the weed-excluding fabric and lithic mulch of slate, as for the adjacent ground.

What’s the problem here? One gardener suggested that winter winds through the gap between the houses might have been responsible for killing the buds on the plum, (but the apricot flowered)? Is the lack of sunshine on the soil or lower few feet of the tree a problem (though fruit trees I have on the north side of fences/hedges grow fine above fence height)? Or is wash-off from the slate a problem, or evidence of coal-like substance in the soil mean something is poisoning them? Is late March too late to plant bare-rooted stone-fruit to establish properly, (it's been OK for the apples and pears down the garden)? Is the contrast of direct south-facing sunlight on the upper part of the plant, and cooler lower down, just too much for them?

Is there anything else I could successfully grow in this location (bearing in mind it should be a food plant, not ornamental, given the concealed location)?