Frank P Matthews Nursery
Frank P Matthews Nursery near Tenbury Wells in Worcestershire is the largest fruit tree fruit nursery in the UK, supplying garden centres all over the country. For a wholesale nursery it propagates an exceptionally wide range - 120 varieties of apples for instance, 39 pears, 23 cherries and 45 plums, including gages and four sorts of mirabelle, as well as peaches, nectarines, figs, quinces, medlars, nuts, and bush fruits.
The Nursery’s reputation for high quality plants encapsulated in its motto ‘Trees for Life’ is now well known to amateurs, although this is a comparatively new market in its over 100 year history. Up until the 1980s the Nursery’s main customers were commercial fruit growers - 80% of its trees went to fruit farmers and 20% to nurseries, but now the situation is reversed with 80% of its output going to garden centres, mail order companies and a few nurseries and 20% or less to growers. A balance that reflects the growth of garden centres in response to the fashion for instant gardens and sadly the decline in the UK’s apple industry. The bulk of their production is now container trees and since the 1980s they have also expanded the range of plants to include ornamental trees which today nearly equals that of fruit giving a total of half a million trees dispatched annually.
The Nursery was founded in 1901 by Frank P. Matthews at Harlington, Hayes in Middlesex at a time when the trade was dominated by famous Victorian firms, such as George Bunyard of Allington, Thomas Rivers of Sawbridgeworth and Laxton Brothers of Bedford, but while all of these have disappeared Matthews moved with the times to celebrate its centenary in 2001.
Since the early 1950s Matthews Nursery was directed by Andrew Dunn, the founder’s son-in-law, who had married Matthew’s daughter Adrye in 1948. The Nursery’s location, however, was soon to become untenable. Originally in the midst of the Thames Valley market gardening area, it now lay in the path of an expanding motorway network around Heathrow airport and they were forced to look for a new site. Matthews favoured the soils of the Wye Valley, but nothing was for sale. In 1956, after four years of searching, Andrew found a 80 acre dairy farm, Berrington Court, in the Teme Valley with all the essentials for a successful nursery - deep fertile soil (old red sandstone), a mild climate, good annual rainfall and the right to draw water from the Teme, which runs through the centre of their land. The move from Harlington to Tenbury Wells took several years and with an enormous amount of hard work Andrew established a new nursery at Berrington, where from the early 1970s he took advantage of the latest research on fruit trees and rootstocks coming out of East Malling and Long Ashton to produce virus free, EMLA plants. Andrew was one of the founders of the Nuclear Stock Association for Tree Fruits (NSA) - an arrangement whereby a group of nurserymen agreed to take the EMLA material from the research institutes and from these mother trees supply fruit growers. It raised quality throughout the whole industry and established the Matthews nursery as one of the places to obtain good trees.
Andrew was joined in 1975 by his son Nick, who began the change from bare root trees for the commercial fruit grower to container trees for the amateur market and also launched production of ornamental trees. Andrew died in 2007 in his 91st year and Nick has now been joined by his daughter Stephanie, the fourth generation of the family to enter the business. Today the Nursery covers some 400 acres with vast glasshouses, polytunnels, packing sheds and a fleet of lorries delivering thousands of trees to hundreds of outlets as a glance at their web-site reveals: http://www.frankpmatthews.com/directorylist.aspx . And the list of ornamental trees has greatly expanded, particularly those which Nick counts as his favourites: they propagate 40 different ornamental apple, as many ornamental cherries, 28 birches and 29 mountain ash and whitebeams.
Novelty is one of the keys to a nurseryman’s success, particularly in the amateur market, and the first area that Nick showed members of the RHS Fruit & Vegetable Committee on a recent tour of the Nursery was his experimental orchard where new material is under trial. An edible Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas) with unusually large fruits from Eastern Europe is being investigated; a collection of 40 -50 walnuts evaluated - Nick is looking for disease resistance and self fertility; and new rootstocks monitored - a hexaploid Colt for ornamental cherries which is less vigorous than Colt, and pryo-dwarf, less vigorous than seedling pear for perry pears and with some immunity to fireblight. Under glass we later saw half a dozen or so loquat varieties, some of which may prove hardy for southern England. The nursery has the licence for propagating and distributing new cherries raised at East Malling Research by Ken Tobutt: Penny was introduced a few years ago and two more even later ripening ones will be named next year. Invincible (delwinor) pear, raised by Delbard Nursery in France, is a new introduction to England made by the Nursery; this is self fertile with a tremendous ability to set fruit.
The Nursery’s largest trial is of apple seedlings raised by the well known amateur breeder, Hugh Ermen of Faversham. Red Devil his first success, introduced by Matthews around 1990, is currently receiving a new wave of interest from organic growers. Hugh used Discovery as one of the parents of Red Devil and a number of his other crosses, which confers disease resistance. Winter Gem, Limelight, Scrumptious, Sweet Society and most recently Herefordshire Russet have all been introduced by Matthews to the amateur market. Every year Hugh sends scions of about 100 seedlings up to Tenbury Wells where they are grafted onto M9 and planted out. Over the next ten years or so these will be observed and weeded out to perhaps a dozen hopefuls and with luck there may be a winner, but probably only once in every five or more years. Their goal is to find well flavoured, productive and easy to grow apples. A selection process that can also provide ornamental Malus candidates - Laura with striking blossom and purple-green leaves is one of Hugh’s seedlings.
Putting science into practice has always been an underlying aim and Nick keeps the Nursery’s large collection of mother trees virus free as in EMLA days when his father had the largest collection in the country. Collections are re-propagated every 15 years to maintain high quality scion material and he pays great attention to ensuring that they are ‘true to name’: fruit is left on the mother trees for checking and he is continually making sure that they are propagating from the best forms available. The apple mother orchard of some 250 varieties also provides a spectacular display at the annual Tenbury Wells Apple Day celebrations in October.
The Nursery is traditional in its approach maintaining the old skills - a staff of ‘knifemen’, who carry out the budding and grafting, and growing most of its own rootstocks. We passed a field of apple stoolbeds in which root growth is encouraged by first covering the beds in sawdust and then earthing them up; an expensive procedure but even in early August they were showing plentiful roots. Stocks are lined out in the fields ready for budding in the following summer, the preferred and most economical propagation route, which takes up about four weeks during late July to early August and if the weather is warm there will be a swift ‘take’. For apples most are budded on M9, but he uses a range of stocks: M26, MM106 for half standards, and M25 for standards, with a fair number on the most dwarfing M27. Pears are double worked with an interstock of Beurré Hardy on quince. Nick is experimenting with a combination of an interstem of M9 on MM106 or MM111 for apple. This gives a stronger, free standing tree than M9, not requiring a stake, with vigour equivalent to M26 and for some reason better quality fruit. So far MM106 and M9 is proving the best rootstock combination for Cox’s Orange Pippin, but this is a development aimed at commercial fruit growers not amateurs.
Every step in the process from budding to sale of the tree is geared to maximising the growth and health of the tree, and the uniformity of high quality was remarkable. These high standards are matched by loving respect of the soil - their most precious asset. Restoring and maintaining good structure and fertility with well tried old fashion methods using plenty of local farmer’s manure and detailed soil analysis, they work a five year rotation of the crops with rye grass as the break crop.
Of the 350,000 fruit trees raised annually, about a third will be potted up for the container market. Some 100,000 are sold to fruit growers and demand from this sector is increasing with interest in new cherry varieties grafted on the dwarfing Gisela 5 as farmers invest in modern production methods. The remainder are for various other sales to nurseries and special orders: for example, to replant cider and perry pear orchards and over the past few years the task of re-propagating the Pear Collection and Nut Collection for the National Fruit Collections at Brogdale. The Nursery also operates a ‘rescue’ service whereby they will propagate a tree specially valued by its owner.
In early August thousands of trees in pots, segregated into the different fruits and rootstocks, filled huge areas around the glasshouses and tunnels at the Nursery’s head quarters. Most of these have spent two years in the ground and their final third year in pots where meticulous care in the compost used, watering and fertiliser ensures the best possible quality at the point of sale to the amateur in the garden centre.
Matthews is one of the few nurseries producing trained trees - 15-20,000 annually of fans, espaliers, cordons and step-over trees (essentially low growing horizontal cordons). A task that occupies a team of six for most of the year pruning and tying in. When asked which was the best training method - a fan or an espalier - Nick replied it depended on your personality: the fan was for the carefree, the more precise espalier for the obsessive, the cordon for everyone. Step-over trees are good for small spaces or borders, and the Nursery also produces ‘Patio’ trees, such as the dwarf peach, Garden Lady.
Delivery of plants to garden centres begins in September, to be followed by bare-root trees lifted in November for dispatch over the next few months. Rootstocks are lifted in the winter, put into special cold stores, graded and then planted out in March, when the propagation year begins again with bench grafting, mostly used for the ornamental stock.
One of the most difficult tasks, Nick confessed, was estimating which varieties would be ordered by garden centres since he always has to propagate way ahead of the orders and anticipate requests. Sales records are his guide for 75% of what they bud with 25% new additions made in the hope that he will get it right in this lottery.
Matthews is a wholesale nursery selling only to the trade, but for those lucky people that live close enough to be able to visit the Nursery trees can be bought through their ‘Cash & Carry’ service which is open from September to April. Otherwise club together with friends, make a big order, share out the carriage costs,and get these super trees direct from Matthews.
Joan Morgan
Matthews’ Case & Carry service is open from September to April: weekdays 8.30 am - 4.00 pm and Saturdays 8.30 am -1.00 pm
Frank P. Matthews Nursery: http://www.frankpmatthews.com
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