A FRUITFUL GARDEN

Neatly trained fruit trees enable you to pack more produce into your garden, offering fresh-picked flavours paired with stylish horticultural design

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A fruit tree at the peak of summer is rich with promise. But in order for it to fulfil its potential, it is now time to thin out the developing fruits, prune back some of the branches and allow the sun to reach in and ripen them.

Tom Coward, head gardener at luxury hotel Gravetye Manor, insists that every garden should have at least one fruit tree tucked within its borders. At Gravetye, he is spoilt for choice. The orchard and the unique elliptical walled kitchen garden are bursting with apples, pears, plums, cherries and apricots, as well as peaches and figs grown in the glasshouses.

Gravetye is famous as the historic home of William Robinson, Victorian pioneer of the wild gardening ethos. But he was also instrumental in promoting fruit pruning styles and terms such as cordon, espalier and stepover in his 1869 book Gleanings from French Gardens. Today, these traditional restricted growing practices are a great lesson for the home gardener.