My new garden: plums and pears galore

If I had to pick just two fruit trees to cultivate, I'd choose a plum and a pear.

In a rare bout of happy coincidence/fate/God's will being done (delete according to your prevailing ideology) the garden of my new house contains those very trees. Even better, the plums are at their peak right now: the tree is dripping with them and the lawn beneath is littered with windfalls. My daughter, who has up until now been in thrall to the organic desert pear ("PA" was one of her first words), spurned her cereal this morning in favour of three plums. The pear tree looks equally productive but the fruit isn't quite ripe yet. No pictures as yet, until I can locate a camera amid the wreckage of boxes that is every room in the house right now.

I've never owned these trees before so I'd love some guidance on good books for fruit tree care (idiot-proof guide to pruning, please) and also on how to identify what varieties they are. I suspect the plum is a Victoria and the pear a comice or similar but it would be good to have a definitive answer.

In the meantime, it's fresh fruit all round and some serious jam making at the weekend - unpacking will have to wait.

Also - don't tell Rick, but I have a blue hydrangea. A small one. As Garden Monkey has pointed out, these are controversial plants. My plan is to get some Hydrangea 'Annabelle' to convince him of the worth of this group of plants, and then convert him to the more 'old school' varieties in time.

Comments

[JamesA-S]

What's with the Hydrangea hatred? I am usually quite well tuned into the floral equivalent of the Polygraph and can suss out which ones are wrong 'uns. But the Hydrangea? I can see that its uncanny resemblance to a bath hat once owned by my grandmother (it was made of scratchy lace with a waterproof lining- I tried it on a number of times and it was not a good look) could put some people off but there are so many advantages.
I see your Annabelle and raise you Aspera, Villosa, Quercifolia and Paniculata. A Royal flush, I think.

[Mel]

Lucky thing, I have to raid my mother-in-law's garden 150 miles away for my tree fruit! Afraid I can't help with the fruit-identification, but after a week of hardcore preserving action, I can highly recommend the new River Cottage Preserves Handbook - it's even more useful (& reassuring) than my WI jam book!

[OyaD]

In the current place I'm living (and soon to depart in a few days) we have neighbours with overhanding pears and plums. As the Ex-Spouse/Still Friend is the homebrewer, he's got recipes for perry and for damson wine which I think will come greatly into their own shortly. In the meantime, my dog happily eats windfall pears and my son has been eyeing the pears as well, waiting for them to ripen so he can strip the things in short order. He can happily eat his own weight in fruit.