If Tom the Appleman had his way, every hedgerow in the land would be burgeoning with fruit. Children on their way to school would pluck juicy pears from sturdy little trees sprouting from cracks in the pavement. Medlars would thrive on traffic islands, and every churchyard in the land would double as an orchard – just as they did 1,000 years ago, when medieval monks were laid to rest among the trees.

Tom Adams is an orchardist, hedge-layer, green woodworker and guru of all things Apple. He hails from the Borders, an area with a long tradition of growing apples and pears, both for the table and for cider and perry. And over five or six years of experiment, Tom has mastered the art of grafting not only apples, but pears, quinces, medlars and plums, on to hedgerow trees, and has watched them thrive.

Tom grafting an apple tree Credit: Christopher Jones

'Doyenne du Comice,’ most delicious but miffiest of pears, has romped away on a 100-year-old hawthorn coppice. Sweet dual-purpose pear 'Pitmaston Duchess’ is growing cheerily in a hedge, oblivious to brambles and nettles.

In a little grove of self-sown thorns, seemingly growing out of solid rock, he is monitoring the fruiting quality of a variety of experimental grafts. He has his doubts about the longevity of the pears, but the hawthorn rootstock seems to suit both quince and medlar; crabs are supporting a variety of apples, and he hopes next year to see the first fruits of plums on blackthorn.

The benefits, suggests Tom, are obvious. The rootstock is of true local provenance, perfectly adapted to local conditions. And by using it, we can persuade fruit to grow in conditions we never thought possible. “Hawthorn and crab apple will grow on very poor soils. If areas like these can be made slightly more productive in terms of providing a free sustainable food source, then it will be a small step toward reducing our dependency on imported and non-local foods.”

Tom makes sure to use local rootstock Credit: Christopher Jones

It’s not a new idea. Fruits such as damsons, bullaces, plums and crab apples were once commonly grown in the hedgerows as linear orchards, doubling as windbreaks and a ready source of tasty cordials and preserves. Different areas favoured different fruits, so that prickly damson hedges were popular in Shropshire and Kent, while cherry plum was common in Oxfordshire and bullace (a round wild plum resembling a sloe) in Essex.

Nowadays, little survives the routine vandalism of flailing rural hedges – usually just as they are coming into fruit. And this is another reason why Tom would like to see the idea spread from countryside to town, to the unproductive and unlovely edgelands that girdle so many cities.

“Scrubland on town and city outskirts quite often has plenty of hawthorn and crab apple trees. This can be seen as established rootstock ready to be turned into a productive orchard with very little work.”

Black Worcester pear grafted onto a blackthorn bush Credit: Christopher Jones

But if grafting skills are wanting, just planting robust varieties on vigorous rootstocks could produce a similar effect, creating “edible corridors”, not just for people but for birds, badgers and butterflies, and bringing beauty and ecological diversity to unloved land.

Precious habitat

It is clear that for Tom, an orchard isn’t just an orchard, it’s a valuable habitat for wildlife. Traditional orchards (those managed without chemicals) are “biodiversity hotspots” which nurture more than 1,800 species, from rare lichens, fungi and mistletoe to beetles, bats and increasingly rare avian visitors like the wryneck, once commonly seen in orchards but now all but absent from Britain as a breeding bird. It is for this reason that the UK Biodiversity Action Plan now includes orchards in its list of priority habitats.

But more than that, argues Tom, these orchards are endangered habitat for people, too. Pruning and grafting, harvesting the fruit and pressing it for perry and cider were seasonal rituals that brought communities together. As the orchards have vanished – two-thirds of Britain’s orchards have been lost since the Fifties – these community ties have vanished with them, as have the traditional skills of orchard management and countless fruit varieties rich in local associations. “Where I live, near Oswestry, we have our own local apple called the 'Sweeney Nonpareil’. We should celebrate our local heritage.”

Heritage windfalls including 'Sweeney's Nonpareil', 'Puckrup Pippin', 'Bringewood Pippin' and 'Red Falstaff' Credit: Christopher Jones

Happily, a new generation of community orchards has sprung up in the past 20 years, and with them, a renewed interest in planting locally distinctive varieties. “There’s a big drive now for local, healthy food, that hasn’t been sprayed with horrible chemicals.” (Most apples are routinely sprayed with a cocktail of pesticides that can persist despite washing.)

“Modern supermarket varieties are bred for nice, clean, shiny skin and a very sweet taste. But the old varieties have health benefits that modern apples lack: the ones that have the russeting and the slight tannins within the flavour contain important anti-inflammatory and antioxidant compounds,” says Adam. “And they’re blinking gorgeous! I’ve just had a 'Puckrup Pippin’, a Worcestershire variety from 1873 that has fruited for me for the first time ever, and I was blown away by the flavour – you won’t find that in the supermarket.”

Apple detectives

Tom spent many happy childhood days in an old, somewhat tumbledown orchard on his cousin’s farm. It was 10 years ago that he took one of the apples for identification to the Marcher Apple Network, a group set up in the Welsh Marches in 1993, with the aim of saving local varieties of apples and pears from extinction.

The orchard turned out to be a botanical treasure trove, where four varieties were found which hadn’t been seen for more than 100 years: 'Gypsy King’, a dessert apple; 'Rymer’ and 'Round Windsor Nonesuch’, both cooking apples; and 'Bringewood Pippin’, a local apple of distinguished pedigree. The discovery prompted Tom to train as an orchardist and to start his own nursery, specialising in heritage varieties suited to organic management.

'Bringewood Pippin' Credit: Christopher Jones

“Even if all the trees keel over and die now, we have saved these varieties,” says Tom. Rescuing old orchards has become a passion – patient work which can take many years. It takes patience, too, to bring the survivors to the point where he can sell them on and ensure their future.

“Inevitably, you’re propagating from diseased wood. Sometimes fruits are so gnarly and diseased it is not possible to identify them easily. So we are trying to raise funds to breed out the virus. The theory is that if you propagate in a warm glasshouse, the tree will grow more quickly than the virus can spread, so you can take healthy cuttings from that new growth. But it costs around £500 per variety, so it’s slow going.”

Meanwhile, there are old orchards to regenerate, new ones to plant, pruning and grafting workshops, all encouraging more people to enjoy more various and delicious fruit.

'Sweeney’s Nonpareil’, it turns out, is rather rudely categorised in an orchard manual of 1839 as “a second rate dessert fruit”. Tom is not discouraged. “Imagine what they’d have made of supermarket 'Golden Delicious’…”

Tom's tips for growing organically

“The key to successful organic growing is to keep your trees well fed and watered. I also grow green manures such as chicory and clovers which I cut and compost to feed the soil.

“Fruit tree flowers attract beneficial insects such as ladybirds, lacewings and hoverflies, and I build bug shelters to encourage them to stay.

“I spray trees with seaweed extract and garlic oil. This increases photosynthetic productivity and acts as a foliar feed, adding micronutrients through the leaf to help trees fight pests and diseases. The garlic also puts off aphids.”

“I grow varieties suited to the west of Britain, with the best resistance to scab and canker, the main fungal diseases in the wetter part of the country. The Welsh border varieties have been bred to suit local conditions, but I also grow old varieties such as 'Ashmead’s Kernel’ and 'Adam’s Pearmain’ which do well here, and a few modern ones like 'Discovery’ and 'Red Falstaff’, which can offer both good flavour and good disease resistance.

“For pears, I like 'Beurre Hardy’ and 'Beth’, plus 'Williams’, 'Conference’ and 'Concorde’ – all very reliable.”

