AWARDS don’t go on trees - well, not until now.

When former investment banker Nick Edwardson took root outside Innerleithen in 2013, to start a fruit sapling business, he had no idea he would be top of the tree within two seasons.

But last month the 45-year-old collected the Business Start Up award at the Scottish Rural Awards.

Dozens of pioneering and successful businesses from across the country were considered for the prestigious honour.

Nick was delighted his Tweed Valley Fruit Trees was considered the best. He told us: “Tweed Valley Fruit Trees are delighted to have won this accolade - we are very proud of what we have achieved and grateful for the continued support of our loyal customers and the local community.

“We have just finished our second season, supplying bare-root fruit trees to customers from London to Benbecula and many points in between from our small specialist nursery. “We were delighted to be announced as winners of the Scottish Rural Awards New Business Category.” Nick remains his limited company’s managing director as well as sole full-time employee This year’s stock list features around 120 varieties of apple, pear and plum. Amongst them are 40 heritage Scottish varieties.

Mr Edwardson added: “We focus on relatively hardy varieties, grafting them all on site and rearing them open ground so that, whilst they will grow and crop well across the United Kingdom, they are acclimatised to the more challenging parts of the country.” Tweed Valley Fruit Trees beat Ashkirk-based equine charity, Stable Life, to the Start Up winning post.

There was other Borders success with Connect Berwickshire Youth Project scooping the Education award.

And a Lifetime Achievement accolade was presented to former Duke of Buccleuch’s hunt joint master Trevor Adams from St Boswells.

The new awards at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh and their gala awards dinner are the first major event of a five-year partnership between Scottish Field magazine and the Scottish Countryside Alliance to celebrate the entrepreneurship of rural businesses.

Richard Bath, editor of Scottish Field, said: “Showing our readers the joys of the Scottish countryside is one of the main aims of Scottish Field, so our sponsorship of the Rural Tourism award is a perfect fit.

“I was amazed by the quality and attention to detail showed by the nominees across each hard-fought category.” More than 200 public nominations were received for businesses and people, from as far afield as the Outer Hebrides and the Borders.

Judging took place at the end of January to select a winner, runner-up and highly commended in each of the ten award categories, encompassing every aspect of rural enterprise, from aquaculture to artisan food producers.

Charlie Shentall, development manager at the Scottish Countryside Alliance, added: “The dinner was also a great chance to promote the Scottish Countryside Alliance’s Routes to Rural Employment (R2RE) initiative - a government-backed scheme which builds employment links for young people in rural communities.”