The United Kingdom's National Fruit Collection is one of the largest collections of fruit trees and plants in the world. Over 2,040 varieties of apple, 502 of pear, 350 of plum, 322 of cherry and smaller collections of bush fruits, nuts and grapes are grown, in of orchards.British Broadcasting Corporation : 17 August 2006 : A Tour Around Kent's Garden of Eden Retrieved 26 June 2010
It has been curated and maintained at Brogdale Farm, Brogdale, Kent since 1952 and is owned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The University of Reading took over day-to-day maintenance of the collection in 2008.
The collection includes two trees or bushes of each variety, in case one is lost.
See also Heirloom plant List of botanical gardens in the United Kingdom National Plant Collection
References
Further reading "Orchard Archives: The National Fruit Collection" by Dr Joan Morgan in Studies in the History of British Fruit, part 2 in Occasional Papers from the RHS Lindley Library, volume 7, March 2021
External links