The Heritage Fruit Tree Nursery is a small but diverse enterprise situated on a few acres of land in the lovely county of Leitrim. The land in question is very well drained, with deep, black peaty soil, which is rich in natural organic matter. This is a huge advantage as it means the soil is always moist but never wet, allowing roots to enjoy optimum growing conditions all year round. As a result, our trees are strong and healthy with well-developed root systems.
The fact that our fruit trees are grafted on site and ‘grown on’ in the open field for 1, 2 or 3 years before selling is another huge advantage as it means that when you receive your trees they will already be well hardened to Irish growing conditions. We are probably fairly unique in that we don’t import any of our fruit trees, although some of our currants and soft fruit plants are sourced from other nurseries within Ireland.
Apples are our speciality, and we can offer more than 300 varieties for sale, by far the largest selection of apple trees for sale in Ireland and perhaps one of the largest in the world. We are particularly interested in collecting and conserving those wonderful old, rare and unusual varieties from all over the world that will surely disappear and be lost forever without some sort of human intervention.
As part of our conservation work we hold back one tree of every variety we propagate for our own use. Each tree is then planted in our orchard where it is safe from extinction and also provides cuttings for future grafting. Growing each variety in our orchard provides potential to carry out important research regarding how each tree performs in the Irish climate.
Here at the Nursery we also specialise in growing varieties with good disease resistance. These varieties are more suitable for organic growing systems as they are less likely to require maintenance spraying although it should be pointed out that even the most resilient varieties are not immune from diseases.
Other fruit trees we sell includes; Pears, Plums, Damsons, Quinces, Medlars. We also supply a large selection of soft fruit plants including Black, White and Redcurrants, Gooseberries, Blueberries, Honeyberries and Aronia.