Real English Fruit – expert pruning, restoration & care for garden fruit trees

We are Dan and Henry Neuteboom, specialist fruit tree pruners based in Braiseworth, Suffolk. We help garden owners across the UK restore, improve and extend the life of fruit trees through expert, traditional pruning.

We don’t remove old fruit trees — we restore them.

Write to us at enquiries@realenglishfruit.co.uk

 

Why Choose Real English Fruit?

Unlike general tree surgeons, we specialise exclusively in fruit trees.

With over 65 years of combined practical experience, we understand how fruit trees grow, decline, and recover. Our work is focused on long-term tree health, productivity, and natural form.

Careful, knowledgeable pruning can:

  • Extend the life of old fruit trees
  • Improve fruit quality and yield
  • Restore neglected or overgrown trees
  • Correct poor past pruning
  • Reduce disease risk naturally

 

Our Fruit Tree Services

We provide professional fruit tree care for gardens, orchards, and heritage trees:

  • Apple tree pruning
  • Pear tree pruning
  • Plum and cherry tree pruning
  • Restoration of overgrown fruit trees
  • Restructuring neglected trees
  • Improving low or irregular cropping

If you have an old, unproductive, or overgrown fruit tree, we can help bring it back into balance.

grass free area around trunk
Keeping an area around the trunk free from grass is good for any fruit tree, young or old

Save and Restore Old Fruit Trees

Many people assume that ageing fruit trees must be removed.

We take a different approach.

If your tree is in the later stages of its life, we can often restore its structure, improve its health, and extend its productive years.

Early intervention is key. With experience, it is often possible to identify what a tree needs before decline becomes irreversible.

century old bramley tree
A magnificent century-old bramley tree

Expert Advice – Send Us a Photo

If you’re unsure what your tree needs, we can help.

Email us at enquiries@realenglishfruit.co.uk with:

  • A photo of the tree
  • A brief description of the problem
  • Your postcode (trees are site-specific)

We’ll respond with practical advice or a quote.

 

Specialist Knowledge & Experience

Dan Neuteboom trained in horticulture at Dordrecht and Wageningen in the Netherlands (1955–1959), forming the foundation of a lifelong career in fruit growing.

His knowledge combines formal training with over six decades of hands-on experience, giving Real English Fruit a depth of expertise rarely found today.

Dan Neuteboom

Blown-Over or Storm-Damaged Trees

A fallen fruit tree is not always lost.

We have developed methods to save and re-establish blown-over fruit trees, allowing them to continue growing and producing fruit.

If your tree has been damaged by wind or heavy rain, contact us for advice (email enquiries@realenglishfruit.co.uk) .

blown over fruit tree

Fruit Tree Identification

Not sure what variety you have?

We can help identify fruit trees, although this requires:

  • Photos of the tree and fruit
  • Size and characteristics
  • Ripening period

There are thousands of UK varieties, so accurate identification requires careful assessment.

Winter Wonder apples
Winter Wonder apples

Grow Healthy Fruit Without Chemicals

We help you improve yield and tree health naturally, without relying on chemical treatments.

Through correct pruning, structure, and care, fruit trees can:

  • Produce better-quality fruit
  • Resist disease more effectively
  • Remain productive for longer
A pheromone trap is very useful against apple sawfly, apple codling moth, plum moth and other pests

Seasonal Fruit Tree Care

Spring & Summer Pruning

  • Improve light penetration and fruit quality
  • Support healthy growth for the following year
  • Restructure trees safely

We also advise on environmentally friendly pest control, including pheromone traps for:

  • Apple sawfly
  • Codling moth
  • Plum moth

Local Focus – Suffolk & Beyond

Based in Braiseworth, Suffolk, we work locally across East Anglia and travel across the UK for specialist fruit tree restoration projects.

Contact Real English Fruit

For expert fruit tree pruning, restoration, or advice:

📧 enquiries@realenglishfruit.co.uk
📍 Based in Suffolk – working across the UK

Send us a photo of your tree and we’ll guide you on the next steps.

Visit our contacts page

Garden fruit tree care update – April

This month there may be sharp ground frost and air frosts in the UK. The blossoms of most cherry, plum and greengage are fully out and therefore very vulnerable to being killed off by the cold snap. If you would like a crop on those trees, cover the blossoms with a double layer of garden fleece. On sunny days, make sure that the bees and various pollinating insects are able to reach the blossoms by creating temporary openings in the fleece. Clothes pegs are therefore a useful way of fastening the fleece.

A flowering fruit tree needs a pollinator, a tree of the same species (e.g. apple) which needs to be in flower at the same time. If you don’t have a pollinator, find another tree of a different variety, cut about three feet of branch (to ensure that it includes both one and two-year-old wood), place it in a bottle of water and hang it in your own tree. This will enable cross fertilization and encourage a good fruit set. The cut branches should be in place before the flowers open completely.

Keep 1 square metre totally clear of all weeds and grass around the trunks of the trees.

On light sandy soils start watering the trees on a weekly basis.

Cut out dead branches and paint the wounds with a sealing compound.

Deal with fungal wood diseases such as canker, collar rot, bootlace fungus.

Don’t let damaging insects get out of control. Stay on the lookout for various types of aphids.

Several diseases may become visible in April. Canker and scab are particularly troublesome in the high rainfall areas of the west country and the more northerly areas where fruit is grown. In low-rainfall areas such as East Anglia, apple trees tend to be affected particularly by mildew under dry soil conditions and warm/humid growing conditions. Silver leaf and bacterial canker in plums and cherry trees and brown rot may occur at this time of year anywhere in the country and are therefore not directly connected to climatic conditions.

A great deal can be done to control these fruit tree afflictions without the use of chemicals:

  • Choose resistant varieties;
  • Maintain an open tree structure at all times;
  • Cut out diseased branches or shoots when pruning
  • Remove all prunings from the orchard or garden
  • Seal the pruning wounds.
  • Practice tree hygiene and remove all mummified fruits from the ground and tree.
  • Seaweed sprays and garlic mixtures all help to increase resistance against fungal diseases.
  • Make sure the trees never suffer from drought or conditions of waterlogged soil.

More tips for April here.

Useful links

Garden orchard encyclopaedia

This website presents information on the entire spectrum of fruit trees for the garden. Click here to see the Garden Orchard Encyclopaedia index. Below are links to some of our most popular sections:

Fruit Tree Video Channel

The videos published on this website illustrate the critical stages of fruit development, from the period from blossom to fruit formation, in a chronological sequence throughout the year. Click here to see the videos currently available.

grease bands how to apply
Watch a video on how to apply grease bands