Hi,
I’m thinking of planting an apple tree in my front yard and would like some advice from the knowledgeable people here.
I have a lot of deer that seem to visit every night just to eat my garden. I can protect the tree for the first couple of years but I’m hoping that I can grow something tall enough to avoid the deer. Ideally though once it’s out of the deer range I’d like it to grow wide rather than continue straight up. I’ve been looking through past topics and it seems this should be possible, but some varieties will be easier than others. Can anyone recommend a good variety? Thanks for the help!
I’m in California, have plenty of chill hours, summer temps in the 80s but some heatwaves into the 100s, and a long season. I think I’m a lower elevation than skillcult but probably not too dissimilar in terms of growing conditions.
Some varieties I’m interested in are Wickson, Pink Parfait, king David, pink pearl and Hawaii.
I’ll probably try to graft on a couple of extra varieties but I’d like to start with something that will easily make a nice scaffold. Can anyone recommend any of these, or anything else?
Welcome to the forum. I have a couple of suggestions.
First take a look at this link for a list of apples that do well in hot climates like California. The apple list is based on the nursery’s owner’s experiences in Riverside, California and also his experiences in growing apples in the tropics (Africa). In addition, look at the “failures” list at the bottom of the page some of these apples like Enterprise are good but no longer offered because of issues that won’t effect you.
This link is to a thread discussing growing apples in California.
Second for most apples you need two apple trees for successful pollination. If you have one tree you may not get any fruit. Plus some apples are triploids and pollen sterile so they cannot pollinate other apple trees. Other trees are partially self-fertile but I would in most cases plan on a minimum of two trees.
Third, what kind of apples do you like to eat either their variety names or characteristics. Do you like sweet, tart, sweet-tart, or some other apple flavor like licorice? We can do a better job of recommending apples if we have some idea of what flavors you like since apple flavor varies widely.
Fourth, if you want a tree that will grow above the deer browse line you probably want trees on a more vigorous rootstock like MM111.
For me this is two issues: what apple do you want to eat and deer defense.
Figure out what kind of apple you like that will grow in your area - it sounds like you probably are well on your way to having a handle on that.
For deer defense, I think you want a very young tree (a whip) that you can grow as a single leader until you get to, say, 5’, at which point you can snip it off and let it branch. In theory the branches will be out of the browsing zone. I recommend a g.890 rootstock. That will get you a half-standard tree that borders on free standing (might not need staking when it’s bigger).
You could do your own graft or buy a bench graft from maplevalleyorchard.com or someone else that offers custom grafts. I think they charge $13 plus shipping.
I find g.890 trees want to grow branches at a upward angle so I recommend training the branches to a flatter angle. Skillcult is all over that as I recall. g.890 trees get big fast so don’t tune it out.
I wouldn’t spend any time worrying about the cross-pollination issue. It’s a rare spot in the US where you wouldn’t be within 500’ of a crab of some sort.
An alternative to just snipping it off and letting it branch… is something called bud knotching.
Often when you just snip them off and let them branch… the branching will form in a condensed area just below that cut.
You may get 4 nice scaffold branches in 6 inches of space up the central leader…
Having your scadfold branches located that close up the tree is not all that desirable strength and light penetration wise.
With bud knotching you dont snip off the central leader… but instead you knotch the buds on the central leader that you want to become scaffold branches. You can choose which buds become scaffolds… the direction that scaffold will grow… and you can space them out (up the central leader) so they are not too close.
Skillcult on youtube goes into great detail on this. It is his prefered method.
I tried it myself this spring with new (2 yr) apple and pears and persimmons and it worked really well.
For deer pressure, I use a central leader on apple trees. I aim for a ten foot tree instead of eight and start the first branch above where the deer browse.
LOL, I would recommend this too if I could ever get it to work!
I bet I’ve tried this on 8 trees now without success.
Skillcult doesn’t say this but I think it would work better cutting back the leader to remove the hormone signal, whose name escapes me at the moment, that inhibits branching.
Thanks for all the advice. To answer your questions:
I have looked at these but wasn’t sure how much it would apply since I do get a significant number of chill hours and my summer temps are not quite as hot. I’ll take another look.
I’m not too worried about pollination, rather than try to fit two trees I’d try to graft a couple of other varieties onto this tree. There are also some other apples trees in neighboring gardens.
I like sweet tart apples, my favorite apples are Wickson and Ashmeads kernel.
It sounds like a vigorous variety would be best so maybe Wickson is a good match.
Thanks for the advice!
I’d thought of buying a barerooot tree from trees of antiquity, I thought that would reach a deer free height sooner than starting from a bench graft?
I have a whips of Etter’s gold and white winter Pearmain (the only successes of last years grafting experiment). Etter’s gold is growing better but I don’t know what to expect from the apple.
