My mother-in-law is interested in planting additional fruit trees (with my assistance):
Two cherry trees of different varieties, so they can cross-pollinate.
Two Asian pears
One Fuyu persimmon
Do you have any recommendations that do well in the Sacramento valley (Yuba City) and are tasty? Especially for the cherries and Asian pears. Are there different kinds of Fuyu to consider?
She has an acre lot and can easily irrigate the trees from her well. And she has been growing a variety of trees mostly successfully for decades. But she has quite a bit of shade from tall trees. Currently she has:
a large lemon tree
a large mandarin orange tree with very tasty large fruit with seeds
a large apricot tree that doesn’t give much fruit
large Satsuma plum and Santa Rosa plum trees
3 year old peach, Cresthaven I think
medium white grapefruit tree
small Washington navel that hasn’t fruited
small Satsuma mandarin tree that has given a few fruit, maybe another small citrus
one or two small avocado trees
a couple medium volunteer fig trees that don’t fruit
probably more trees that I can’t remember
Fowler nursery is only 40 miles away and has a good selection of high quality varieties. I think they are concerned about selling the best tasting fruits. I have tried and like many of what they sell.
If I moved to Yuba City I’d be headed southeast on 65 at warp speed. Open Fri and Sat only.
Thank you, Fowler’s sounds great, I just called them. I live in the Bay area, and probably she can go up to Fowler’s and buy the trees on Friday and I will plant them on the weekend. Or something like that.
For the Asian pears, the choices at Fowler’s are:
Shinseiki, Shinko, Yoinashi, Olympic
People on this forum rate Olympic (Korean Giant) highly. And her friend grew an Asian pear in the past and maybe she has a recommendation.
And for cherries, the choices are:
Bing, Benton, Lapins, Rainier, Sandra Rose
Any recommendations? She had a big cherry tree for years but the birds and the ants got most of them recently. It was multigrafted originally but I don’t know how many varieties survived. She cut it down a few months ago, the inside of the wood had been eaten/rotted away by something. She can get good cherries at the fruit stand on her corner.
I think I also want to get her a prune plum, maybe Muir Beauty.
And maybe another apricot. The choices at Fowler’s are:
Apache, Nicole, Orangered, Robada, Royal ( Blenheim)
I’m leaning towards Orangered or Robada. She has a big apricot tree already for a pollenizer, but she doesn’t know the variety and I’m not sure when it blooms
Lapins and Bing have similar fruit but I’d favor Bing. The big difference is that Lapins is self fertile and a good pollinator. Benton and Sandra Rose are very high quality here. Benton is also self fertile. Rainier is the one with lowest quality for me. My top three would be Bing, Benton, and Sandra Rose. But local advice trumps mine because cherries can vary widely at different locations.
My two best apricots are Orangered and Robada.
Take local advice on the Asian pears. But one of mine would be Olympic.
My mother-in-law went to Fowler’s and bought 6 trees. She decided to get a Jade Nectarine (on Ishtara rootstock) instead of a prune plum. I bought a Dave Wilson bare root Fuyu persimmon at Lemuria in Dixon (on I-80 near Davis). It was $45, they were selling Dave Wilson peaches etc for $25-$30.
She really liked the drive to Fowler’s and thought they were very friendly and helpful. But because of something they said, she got the impression that they didn’t grow their own trees, only sold trees grown by others. I think Fowler’s grows the trees they sell?
Question: should I cut the top off of the apricot? Or would that risk introducing disease (even though it’s been dry here lately) ? It already has enough low branches that I can wait until summer I think.
Fowler does grow their own trees. Their main business is wholesale; the trees that they sell retail on weekends is just a small fraction. The salesperson might mentioned the wholesale business and your MIL misunderstood it as it was a different company they get the trees from.
With dry weather in forecast and trees just about to wake up from dormancy, I think you can safely prune them.
Quick visit to my mother-in-laws and a taste of a delicious Jade nectarine. She didn’t want me to net them and the birds pecked most of them. There are lots of Asian pears on both trees, and there were lots of persimmons until a blue jay ate all but three.
This is the fifth year in ground and all six trees are still alive.
I have learned that my mother-in-law doesn’t like thinning fruit and doesn’t want me to put up nets. But she is great at watering and managing her big garden.
This is the first year that the Orangered Apricot has set fruit, only 5, and the tree has grown very slowly but looks healthy. I put some bags around them and maybe she will get to taste some in a few weeks.
The Fuyu persimmon has been great, but mockingbirds/ blue jays (scrub jays) got most of the fruits early every year. And in 2021 it set only a couple fruit for some reason. This year it is loaded and she let me net the tree, at least for this early stage.
The Jade nectarine is great most years. We never have eaten a cherry from either tree, they never set much fruit and the birds get the rest. I haven’t been around when they are blooming.
This year both the Shinko and the Korean Giant got fireblight for the first time, they looked perfectly healthy up to now. I can’t say that one tree was more resistant–the Shinko had less, but it’s also a smaller tree. Some years the trees have had good fruit but other years so-so, maybe thinning would help…
