Classic Gardening Magazine
Gardening as it ought to be
To be an apple pilgrim
Why is it that, while walking the increasingly popular pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostella is hugely exotic and enjoyable, there is only one historic fruit tree that attracts even a passing interest?
That's a question posed in a wonderful gardening book that I've just come across called Forgotten Fruits, by Christopher Stocks.
I have a feeling I'm going to find much posting inspiration in it, but this is the first topic that has caught my eye.
Stocks says that, as recently as 1948, gardeners were still making pilgrimages to see original cultivars and notable examples of apple trees such as Beauty of bath, Ribston Pippin and Newton Wonder.
Today, only the remarkable Bramley Seedling that still survives in the garden where it was originally raised in Nottinghamshire ever gets paid a visit.
If we can visit Dove Cottage because of it's associations with Wordsworth, says Stock, why not the sites of important culinary discoveries?
Sadly, many of them have been lost, but Forgotten Fruits contains a gazetteer of some of the notable horticultural births. Why, just down the road from me in Brientford, I learn, is the home of the Black Tartarian cherry. In Turnham Green Dunnelow's Seedling apple and William's Bon Chretien pears were first sold.
I feel a road trip coming on. More from Forgotten Fruits soon
Why is it that, while walking the increasingly popular pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostella is hugely exotic and enjoyable, there is only one historic fruit tree that attracts even a passing interest?
That's a question posed in a wonderful gardening book that I've just come across called Forgotten Fruits, by Christopher Stocks.
I have a feeling I'm going to find much posting inspiration in it, but this is the first topic that has caught my eye.
Stocks says that, as recently as 1948, gardeners were still making pilgrimages to see original cultivars and notable examples of apple trees such as Beauty of bath, Ribston Pippin and Newton Wonder.
Today, only the remarkable Bramley Seedling that still survives in the garden where it was originally raised in Nottinghamshire ever gets paid a visit.
If we can visit Dove Cottage because of it's associations with Wordsworth, says Stock, why not the sites of important culinary discoveries?
Sadly, many of them have been lost, but Forgotten Fruits contains a gazetteer of some of the notable horticultural births. Why, just down the road from me in Brientford, I learn, is the home of the Black Tartarian cherry. In Turnham Green Dunnelow's Seedling apple and William's Bon Chretien pears were first sold.
I feel a road trip coming on. More from Forgotten Fruits soon