Kitchen Garden Forum

First time growing an apple tree and a pear tree in containers. Now that spring is knocking on the door, new leaves start to grow. I see tiny green hairs between the leaves on both plants. Does anyone know what these are?

They look well healthy but my apples & pears don't have furry leaves but shiny ones. What is the varieties? Might be related to that rather than anything wrong with them, or you could contact the supplier if you remember who you got them from.

Dear Elmigo,
leaves can be hairy for many reasons but the main ones are for insulation and to prevent water loss. In the case of baby apple leaves it is insulation - to protect the leaves and shoots from frost. Later in the season the hairs will have gone as they are not needed. If you look round the garden a lot of plants will have this spring fuzz. The pubescence (proper name) will not always work if the frost is a severe one but for light frosts it does.

I would point out Westi that it can vary between varieties of apple and also pear but if you look closely at the young shoots then there will be some fuzz.
Regards Sally Wright.

Thanks Sally, I will be looking closely at my trees tomorrow as never noted it before. How interesting - time to stop & observe more, but I just rejoice when they come into bud & move onto other stuff & let them get on with it.

Cheers again!

It was actually out of curiosity, I think they look very healthy really. Thank you for this explanation, sally! Now that you say it, I never see them on older trees. Those are barely 3 years old, the varieties are Cox' Orange Pippin (apple) and Doyenne du Comice (pear) but they were very cheap as this would be my first try. They don't come directly from a professional grower.