Almonds

Almond trees have attractive blossom, and the nuts have healthy properties.

Almonds grow best in warm dry climates - they are grown commercially in southern California, as well as southern Europe. The best way to grow almonds in the UK is to train them as fans against a south facing wall or fence. The main advantage of this technique is the beneficial microclimate which helps protect the blossom in early spring, and ripens the nuts over the summer. It also makes it easier to protect the tree from peach-leaf curl infection (to which all almond trees are somewhat prone).

All almonds are reliably self-fertile so you only need to plant one tree. Planting two almond trees (of different varieties) will improve cropping, although cropping is usually light in the UK climate.

Almonds are quite closely related to peaches, and like peaches have very attractive spring blossom. The small flowers are amongst the first to emerge in early spring and are usually white or light pink, with distinctive dark red centres.