Plants Online

Flowers and pollination

April is the first month when alot of plants, edible fruits and ornamental plants are coming into flower.

For fruits to form, however, pollination must first take place.

We will take the confusion out of this process!

There are 3 types of fertility with plants...

Self-fertile- Will produce fruit without the need of pollen from another tree. You can plant this in the middle of nowhere and it will still produce fruit.

Partially Self-Fertile- Will produce some fruit without the pollen of another tree but more fruit is provided with a pollination partner e.g. another tree of the same species within a few miles.

Non-Self-Fertile- Needs a pollination partner to produce fruit i.e. another tree of the same species within a few miles.

Pollination is the process of pollen coming from a same species tree being physically added to the flowers of your tree to start the fruit growing process. This comes about by the generous nature of bees, moths, butterflies, flies and also the wind.

The wind however can also hinder the pollination process.For pollination to take place, the trees or plants in question need to flower at the same time.If when they come into flower its very windy and showery, it will be much harder for the pollen to be spread.

Remember, to figure out plants of the same species, look at the latin name, e.g. Malus is the latin name for the apple species, this covers both ornamental and edible varieties.

Another good example is the Prunus species, this covers Cherrys, Damsons, Plums, and Gages, as long as these flower at the same time they will pollinate each other.

As with everything there is an exception to the rule!

This exception is called a triploid!...this simply means that the plant needs two partners to be pollinated by not just one, an example is the Apple variety 'Bramley', so put simply, if you want bramley apples, you needs to plant three apple trees.

Don't let the sceince of pollination put you off growing fruit.

Try out varieties you like to eat, remember to keep the name tags of the plants you grow so you know what kind of pollination they need!