I’m planning to plant some fruit trees (apricot, peach, pear, perhaps…) next Spring and I’m a little wary of the standard garden centre offerings.
Can someone please recommend a specialist nursery with good healthy plants - and is good at giving advice to an ignoramus incompetent gardener such as me!
Can’t help @_Brian , sorry, but wish you the very best of luck. They seem to be all over the place and I’ve slowly been finding the ones around us - not at all well publicised but so very helpful with advice when you do find them. Going by how I’ve been finding them, do you have any markets near you that have plant stalls which are clearly not just from one person’s back garden? We found one, talked to him, found which day his nursery was open and went to it. We asked about trees, which he didn’t grow, and he pointed us to to a specialist tree nursery in the area.
Just to add - unlike other plants, trees are normally planted in the winter when they are dormant (they are also plantable bare-rooted at this season and are much cheaper then the potted-up ones). We started out originally from our local Point Vert outlet and their trees were a reasonable quality at that time but it was a long while back.
Thank you @AngelaR for your helpful tips. I had planned to plant in early spring so your information about winter planting is especially germane. If I do find any good suppliers I’ll post here.
Happy New Year!
Brian
There are a good variety of trees in Agriflor, L’Isle Jourdain. They are also increasing their stock and new outside covered display areas. Pot grown trees can be planted any time of the year providing you water very often.
Thanks, Peter.
In fact I am local to that branch of Agriflor. They have, as you say, a good selection but a limited range of varieties of each tree. Also. the last time I bought from them I did not feel the advice they gave was particularly helpful. It’s possible I was just unlucky with the assistant though!
I have also bought from meillandrichardier.com. last year got 9 raspberry plants(3 of each variety), all good.
Thank you all for your recommendations.
I eventually went for mail order, as each nursery within an easy drive only stocked one of types of bare-root fruit tree in which I was interested.
Bauchery looked promising but their website was a little ambiguous regarding whether or not they could despatch all elements of the order in one go. I emailed them to ask, and they replied to say that they would complete the order in one lot - perfect. But when I went to order, 2 of my required plants were out of stock.
I then found Meilland et Richardier who seemed to have everything in stock for a similar price so I placed my order.
The site explained that all orders for bare root trees would involve selecting then digging up the required specimens before packing them and despatching.
The trees arrived 9 days after I placed my order, wrapped in plastic and inside a long card box. They all seemed to have a large and well-developed root system - length varied from 80cm (noisette) to 1.5m (apple - reine des reinetttes). The trees came with clear instructions, so I put the bare rooted trees into a wheelbarrow and covered the roots with wet earth for two days until I was ready to plant them.
Planting took place two weeks ago, and all 4 trees (apple, nectarine, pear, hazelnut) are showing signs of growth.
I’ll post an update in a few years when they have borne fruit 
How are your raspberries and can you recommend a variety? We’re in the Charente and I assumed it would be too hot for them to be successful but shop fruit seems so bad this year we thought we should try growing more of our own fruit.
An update, spurred on by the sudden resurrection of the thread.
Although I planted the trees according to instructions and feed and watered them as required, they were all dead within 18 months 
We grow 2 raspberry varieties, Heritage and Blissy here in Charente Maritime. They both fruit from late July onwards. Raspberries need water so be prepared to do so if there’s no rain. If I was planting them again I would try to give them a place with some shade for part of the day.
Really sorry to hear that.
Did you by any chance take it up with the pépinièriste (if that’s the word I want)?
I meant to but didn’t get round to it. I’m the world’s worst gardener so I’m pretty sure it was my fault…
That’s really sad. It’s really impressive though that you managed to kill a noisette 
. Maybe
Has something to do with it 
I noticed you planted in March. Any prunus should really be planted in late autumn, Nov/Dec time, you can be a bit more flexible with some others but that’s a good time to plant most fruit trees. We have bought dwarf nectarine, apple, cherry and pear from these people
Also bought a plum at a local market that sells fruit trees a few times each year.
The raspberries I planted were, Mirastar, Sumo2 and Tulameen. The first two have had an abundance of fruit, however Tulameen has struggled to establish itself and has not had any fruit yet. We’ve enjoyed raspberries from June up to now and plenty for freezing as well. They were planted on an east facing slope with plenty of sun and some shade from the grape vines on either side of the row. Trust this helps.
Agreed, especially if it’s a hot summer. Young trees don’t thrive. They need the autumn/winter/spring months to establish themselves. Also watering really needs to continue for a year or two.
@_Brian Have you by any chance got clay soil? That can be a problem as water can run into the clay hole and just sit there round the roots and kill them off. If so, good Idea to make a very large hole and mix the clay with humus and maybe put a good load of grit mixed in with the soil in the bottom of the hole below the roots.
Thanks, Sue. Although there is some clay in the garden most of it is well mixed with river sand. Also when I planted I prepared the hole as you suggested, plus a couple of handsful of the fertiliser recommended by the supplier. I might have another go this autumn thanks to the encouragement I’m receiving here!
Thanks a lot for the information on your raspberries. Planting position is critical so it’s helped us to decide where to put them armed with a list I’ve made we should find something suitable. Early last year we bought a variety of fruit trees from several garden centres and all have done really well apart from the mirabell which hasn’t done anything. The mulberry tree had loads of fruit spring and early summer. The apricot had masses of blossom but no fruit. The cherry had plenty of sour cherries. The star is the fig tree. We’ve been waiting for the figs to go black but then I remembered one of Stella’s post on her green fig tree so we’ve just rescued them in time and they’re really delicious. So overall we’re quite pleased as we didn’t expect any fruit so soon after planting