The National Trust of Australia is more often thought of as preserving important historical buildings but it is also working to preserve our food heritage as well. And it's giving Australians the chance to also do their bit.
In a first, the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) Gardens Unit has announced plans to offer for sale a selection of rare heirloom apple variety trees that have been propagated at the Rippon Lea Heritage Orchard.
The garden staff have selected and grafted 18 different heritage varieties from the more than 150 currently growing. They'll be holding a special sale at Rippon Lea on March 14 for people to purchase plants to grow themselves. The event will also give visitors to taste the heirloom apples from the garden’s trees.
The apple varieties growing in the gardens include wonderfully named ones such as Winter Banana, King Cole, Coral Crab, Adams Pearman, Beauty of Bath, Chenango Strawberry, Cox's Orange Pippin, Devonshire Quarrendon, Gooseberry Pippin, Huon Belle, Magnum Roundways Bonham, Peasgoods Nonsuch, Pittmaston Pine, and Pomme de Neige.
All the trees selected are no longer commercially grown and are hard to acquire. They are grafted onto semi-dwarfing rootstocks creating trees that are well suited to home gardens because of their manageable size and pest resistance.
Rippon Lea Estate head gardener, Justin Buckley, said the garden’s orchard actually features around 160 different varieties of apple and pears.
“So we’ve basically selected about 20 of those this year and we’ve grafted them ourselves and for the first time offered them for sale,” he said. “Hopefully if they sell well this year we will be able to make it a yearly event.”
Buckley said visitors to the gardens had often show strong interest in the apple varieties and had asked if they were available for sale.
“We’ve be asked so many times if any of the trees were available and this year we have gotten around to being able to say yes. A lot of English people particularly know some of the varieties a lot better because many are still grown in England but they haven’t been able to get them here, like the Pippins.”
Garden staff will be available at the sale to answer questions and give advice on growing the trees.
For more information head to nattrust.com.au
