I found this tiny seedling growing in the lawn. Looks like peach. I should move it away from the lawn mower territory and graft something on to it next year.
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I never, ever tire of seeing photos from members property, and yours are just GREAT! You really have a very nice place there. Perhaps I’m partial to it because the general look of the land is so similar to what I’m used to as oppossed to many of the people who post here. Places like California and Arizona are georgeous to be sure, but I think we all believe our own part of the world is more special!
BTW…in the 5th photo from top- the one that shows the 2 rows of fruit trees, is that beautiful tree with white blooms that sits in the middle and end of your rows a Dog wood? Is it a wild one? I’m curious because the wild dogwoods around here are especially beautiful this year and seem to have more, bigger blooms than usual. Judging from that photo you guys may be experiencing the same thing? In fact, I’ve been very tempted to dig up some wild dogwoods and replant them in my yard…but I’m not sure I’ll even plant another tree that doesn’t produce edibles! Whatever it is, that sure is a pretty tree.
I think that’s the tree he said was an old Milam apple tree.
Well, I feel pretty silly now! Just went back and reread it and I’m sure you are right. This is what happens to me when people post photos…I become illiterate and just glaze over the words and concentrate on the pretty pictures. haha.
Hey Dave, I’ve been meaning to ask you something. I already got you mixed up once before, and I think I may well be mixed up now so if I am just consider it more proof of my CRS. Back about 3 years ago when I was top working my first big apple tree (by bark grafting 4-5 scions onto the 3 foot tall stump of a 18 inch diameter apple tree, someone else was doing a very similar project at their dad’s house. Did you do a bark graft on a large tree at your Dad’s? If not, its CRS, but if it was you then I’m just wondering how yours turned out and whether the tree is pretty large now?
My grafts all took and grew at rates you wouldn’t believe. But like an idiot I didn’t brace them to anything. When you have a 4 foot tall whip being held onto a stump by nothing but bark, a little callousing, and some rope and tape around the stump, you can imagine what happened…wind took them all out. Fortunately I left a nurse limb when I cut the rest of that giant apple tree off, and when I did the stump grafts I also did a small saddle graft onto a water sprout on the nurse limb. So what I have today is a little strange looking but I like it. What you see is a big thick “stump” that stands about 3 foot tall and has nothing else on it except one very big limb, then about 3 feet out on that limb it looks like someone just attached a full sized apple tree. haha The wood I grafted onto that original nurse limb is now about 5 feet tall (from the nurse limb) and fully branched- just a nice apple tree that seems to almost be floating out in the air.
Anyway, back when I was working on mine someone else was doing something similar (to the stump graft part) and I have always wondered if theirs worked out. Was it you? thanks
@speedster1 is right, it’s one of many old Milam’s on the farm in bloom. We have dogwoods also, but they haven’t woken up yet. I guess they are wild, because they’re not in places where someone would plant them. For the most part most of the trees around here still aren’t leafing out yet, but should be done in a month. There are also some redbuds around here, and they are blooming.
I’m curious why the Milam’s produce fruit, I don’t think there’s any other varieties that bloom around here, so I don’t know how they can get pollinated unless they are self-fertile, or perhaps not all these trees are Milam’s. Of course, there’s the new trees, but they prob aren’t producing too much viable pollen.
It is cool to walk down to where the big old blooming apple trees are at, and you can hear the humming and buzzing of all the bees in them doing their work. That’s a very welcome sound.
You’re right, it is a beautiful part of the country, but every part has its appeal, I guess. It takes a while for things to get going in this area, but when it does, it’s very nice. I’ve only been here three years, but I like it better than Texas as far as the weather goes. You get a true four seasons here, and although the summers here are very warm and humid, it’s still better than the scorching, relentless heat we’d get in TX for the three months of summer.
I had to look up what a Milam apple was. I happened on a really neat page about them that you might find interesting if you haven’t seen it:
http://www.milaminvirginia.com/milam_apple.html
I sort of remember you telling us once, but please remind me…how did your place come to have those old Milam apple trees. I want to think that you said your wife’s family had an orchard there at one time, is that right? The one in the photo looks like it was in a fence row, though??? Of course, it might now have been a fence row when it was planted, or it could have been from a seed pooped out by a bird and so on. Does it and the others make good apples?
Yes, I’ve seen that web site, apparently the apple originated in Virginia, and folks brought it west to this part of the country in the 18-19th century. It was an important apple back then, but has fallen into obscurity.
From what my wife says, her dad’s parents planted lots of apple trees here years ago. Whether they’re all Milam’s, I don’t know. The fruit from the trees is very small, maybe golf ball sized, it has a kind of a sooty, yellow skin. The flavor is very meh, not very sweet or tart, and a bit mealy. About all you can do with them is make apple butter, too small and mealy for pies or canning. I’m sure if the fruit was thinned out, they would be larger, but most of it is way up in the trees, so you can’t reach them. How they got on the fence row, I don’t know, they could be volunteer trees.
That fence goes from almost the barn, all the way up the hill behind us, almost 300 feet up. Her Dad and others run that barbed wire fence many years ago. Talk about lots of work, don’t know I could do that!
Last year, I did happen across a different looking apple in a tree on that fence row you see in that picture. The fruit was about golf ball size, but had a reddish, fly-specky sooty skin on it, nothing like the Milam’s. Me and the wife sampled it, and it was very good, had more tartness and sweetness to it, and maybe a bit firmer. It reminded me of a Winesap. So, I hope it can produce more this year.
Some of the apple trees on this farm seem to be biennial, there are some that didn’t bloom last year that are this year.
Yes, there was a small orchard down by the old house. Small, I mean no more than a dozen or so fruit trees. There were apples, plums, and cherries, plus gooseberries, and blackberries. According to the Mrs, there was some kind of blight or freeze, or some other disease about 15 years ago that took out all of the trees, except a couple of cherries, which are still there. They produce, but they’re also so tall now, only the birds get the fruit.
I got to thinking on why some of the Milam’s produce every year, and that the fruit is very small. Could it be that although they might be self-fertile, they’d produce bigger fruit if they had another variety to pollinate it? When our new trees start producing enough viable pollen maybe the Milams will put out bigger fruit? Just a thought. The fruit is most likely small because the trees never get thinned out.
Yes Kevin that was me. The bark grafts were a mixed bag for me. Deer munched all 4 of the grafts on one of the trees and the other set of bark grafts have only one single survivor, Pink Lady. At the time they all leafed out but 3 of them eventually died off. I’m not sure why but since it was dads house I was unable to keep a close eye on them throughout the summer. We all have opinions and for me I’m not a big fan of bark grafts. They have their place and are one of the few real options for top working very large diameter wood. The limbs that I bark grafted look quite bad right now. Even though they were wrapped in flagging tape the trees have bark peeling issues in the vicinity of the grafts and don’t look real healthy. For me, I’d prefer to do a traditional cleft or splice graft on a nearby water sprout than to go peeling so much bark back for a rind graft. I never braced my bark grafts either. Maybe that’s why many of them failed. I’ve not looked at dads trees this spring but I’m curious if he’ll get some fruit on the Pink lady. I have some extra scionwood that I’m not going to use so I’ll take it to dads and graft it to his trees.
Okay … how do you keep the birds away?
That is a pretty cherry tree. I can see why you like it. My one reservation is that it’s probably not a strong tree. Those crotch angles are way too tight. But cherries rarely have that heavy of a crop load. And with a rope or strap it could all be tied together so that breakage would be a non issue.
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I’m in full agreement with everything you just said about Bark Grafts. While I had great takes (4 of 4!) eventually they all failed due to being broken off by wind or gravity. I was shocked at how little connection had formed after a full season of growth…very little callousing. One of them even made it 1/2 way through a second year and STILL have very little natural wood growth connecting it to the tree. And like yours, the tops of them eventually had splitting and peeling and generally just looked like h###. So thanks for sharing- I wondered if you’d had similar results and it sounds like you definitely did. AS you say, sometimes bark grafts are about the only thing that can be done, but I’m going to avoid them when possible in the future, just like you.
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Great question, because they sure do love them. I just bought some netting at Lowes and wrapped the whole tree in it right about the time the cherries started to turn red. This really worked great for me, wasn’t to expensive, fairly easy to put on, etc. Only problem I found was if you leave them on too long, the new growth being generated by the tree will be deformed due to the weight of the net sitting on the tips of the limbs forcing the growth to form in whatever direction the net is pulling it. But if you put net on only when cherries are ripening and take it off as soon fruit is picket, the deformed growth can be minimized.
Thanks Steven! A compliment from you is HIGH praise indeed!!! But you are 100% right and I was aware of those angles. In my defense, this is one of the very first trees I ever planted. So back when it really mattered- back when the tree was first planted, I know absolutely nothing about fruit trees or pruning. All I wanted was to see it get big as soon as possible, so I didn’t cut anything off of it for the first year and maybe first 2 years. Another mistake I made by not cutting anything was that the tree has a considerably longer trunk that it could have/should have. If I had cut it back to 24-30 inches, it probably would have created some new scaffolds on the trunk. They probably would have had better angles and certainly could have left me with a tree that had more production lower down. As it is, this is one of my few trees that I have to use a ladder to prune and pick. That wouldn’t be so bad if all that height was production area, but I have several feet of useless area. And btw…I think those angles are probably because it was grown-as most trees are- in a tight row with almost no space between trees. So the scaffolds are mashed against each other and forced to grow upward at that sharp angle. This wouldn’t be a big problem for experienced growers who would have topped the tree at planting and let lower, better angled scaffolds form. But I just planted it and thought the best thing was to leave everything on it so it would come into production sooner. WRONG!!! ha. Oh well…live and learn. Thanks again for the kind words. if fruitnut finds any redeeming qualities in one of my trees then it really makes me feel good!
I take advantage of the weight of the net to bend growth horizontal, I try to make sure everything that is bent is pointing outwards from the leaders.
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Since I don’t want most of my trees to get any taller, I either prune off that bent growth or keep it bent down.
I have a Lapins that i have knocked back yearly…trying to keep it as low as i can because covering it is such a pain. I think i’ve i ever do another sweet cherry, i’ll UFO it.
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That is cool!
Dig that cherry up and plant it in one of those greenhouses. Then if you are lucky like me you won’t need to cover it. Mine are merely ornamental…lol
My biggest issues are brown rot and robins. A greenhouse would work wonders with a sweet cherry. I really need to start over on mine.
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