Pear 'Conference' Mini Espalier 5Ltr

• Sweet, smooth flesh
• Train to an espalier shape
• Grow against a wall or flat surface
• Create a striking feature

Delicious dessert Pear ‘Conference’ is the country’s favourite pear and no wonder, with its heavy crops of long slender fruit with smooth, juicy flesh. It’s self-fertile (though you’ll get even more fruit if there’s a pollination partner nearby) and the white flowers in spring are a magnet for bees. This mini espalier-trained pear tree makes a striking feature grown against a wall or fence. It’s also ideal for smaller gardens that don’t have space for bush fruit trees.

Pear ‘Conference’ is in pollination group 3.

How you will receive your plants:

Selected by our team of experts and sent from our nursery, you will receive your plant in a pot, ready to plant out.

Can’t plant straight away?

Place the pot in a sheltered spot outdoors and water regularly to keep the soil moist.

Planting tips and hints:

Before planting your tree, put up horizontal support wires against a wall or fence. The wires should be spaced 35cm apart vertically.

Plant your tree in front of the support wires, leaning slightly back towards them.

Dig a hole slightly wider than the rootball of the plant. Place the plant in the hole so that it sits at the same level in the ground as it did in the pot. When backfilling, mix in a soil improver such as well-rotted farmyard manure. Firm the soil around the plant and water well.

First year after planting

• Prune the leader (the main central stem) to just above a healthy bud, above the height of any side branches. This bud will produce a shoot that becomes the new leader.

• Tie in the new leader shoot to the support wires.
• Leave the side shoots to grow at approximately 45 deg angles to the stem until late summer, then gently lower them and tie them in to the support wires so that they lie horizontally.
• Cut back any new shoots growing from the side shoots to 3-4 leaves above the basal cluster. (The basal cluster is a group of 2-4 leaves growing close together at the base of a shoot.)

Following years

• Once your espalier tree has produced the number of horizontal branches that you want to maintain, cut off the central leader completely, above the highest horizontal branches.
• Cut back all side shoots growing from the horizontal branches to 3-4 leaves above the basal cluster (see notes above).
• Remove any overly vigorous upright shoots, and any shoots growing in the wrong direction.

After several years, well-established espaliers may produce long side shoots from the horizontal branches which take up too much space and only fruit at the tips. To renovate, prune in winter, cutting back only one-third of the side shoots in any one year. Cut side shoots back to stubs 3-5cm long, cutting just above a bud.

Feeding and aftercare:

Click here to view our full Fruit Tree Growing Guide.