What was it like?
I’m not talking about commercial orchards. Home orchards with plenty of $ behind them.
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My guess is Alan has seen a lot of them
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Going to Brunswick today I noticed someone planted 3-4 long rows of Banana trees today. It probably was not commercial as there were many other things growing in the very large clearing.
@Alan ?
What’s “rich”?
Lol, Redfin can show you 
or any real estate agent. I did real estate once upon a time. There’s a lot of really grand gardens that turned into public venues here in the pnw such as Lakewold gardens and Kubota Gardens. Sometimes the city will ask you to donate your garden if it looks nice enough… or they can take it from you through eminent domain like they did with a dude’s house to be used as a parking lot. The parking lot one was recent…
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Yes I’ve seen and managed scores of them. Most of my customers are high double digit or triple digit millionaires- but my orchard is the coolest by my reckoning. A dedicated hobbyist whose in their orchard every day can have a better orchard than the ones I’m paid thousands to manage. That is, if you love your trees like Scott does. Lots of my customers have full-time in-house landscape help, but you can’t teach them to care. Without my involvement results would tend to plummet and my customers know it.
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Never think about bananas in Z6. That must be a sight if you are in the right climate.
Are they high maintenance trees that their gardeners can’t deal with?
What sort of makeup are their orchards? Do they pick the types of fruit trees or have an interest in them? Or is that left to the gardener?
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Dunno, a few million is rich to me. But I guess rich enough where you just do things and you don’t have to worry about being able to pay for it.
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For some reason, I struggle to picture a person/persons with $50-100M+ picking their own fruit.
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If I had 10M more… think my orchard would still look about the same… but I would probably pay someone to do the really hard work and buy some equipment to make things easier. A small tractor, hole digging auger, bucket for moving around compost and mulch. A mule type atv for getting around in the orchard.
TNHunter
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In the northeast, all common fruit trees are pretty high maintenance. Of course it depends on how pristine the customer wants the fruit… most settle for less that perfectly clean, but since apple (Marsonnina) leaf blotch has become rampant in my region most of the orchards I manage require 5 sprays, including summer fungicide apps in July and Aug. For pristine, 2 or 3 more summer sprays are needed.
Some of my customers do most of the varietal choosing, but most leave the variety selection to me and simply say how many of what species they want.
The gardeners at sites I work have nothing to do with fruit trees and don’t want to because they don’t know anything about their care. Sometimes I will get in-house help to do some thinning, but I ALWAYS have to come back and remove at least half the fruit they leave on trees- no matter what specs I give them or links to you-tube videos I provide.
Some love to harvest their own fruit, some have their lawn people do it and share it with them. Some have me set them up with a food bank that sends volunteers to pick fruit and take it away, especially with apples. My orchards produce literally tons of fruit for food banks in my region.
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If I were independently wealthy; I would have more land and needed help. I would have a fruit tree nursery and help start new orchards.
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I’m not independently wealthy, and did this without a huge money investment out front, but the business took a decade to truly establish- even if you are a smooth talker and fairly competent, it takes a long time to build a reputation in such a narrow field. At least the very rich tend to associate with other rich people, so there is some word of mouth. Now, over 30 years later, I’m 73 and need to find a smart and hard working apprentice to take my business over. My knees are beginning to insist.
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I have a good nucleus of trees to start with. Still a work in progress. A fair amount will allow scions to start replicating this fall. But I will still add more types. Some more early apples. Some Georgia origin. And some interesting Euros. A very few limbertwigs.
Should have my first 1/8 size rootstock next spring.
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I know a fair number of folks with net worth in the $1-3M range. Their orchards look like plain old orchards to me.
I think you need to look at the .1% ers to be truly impressed
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Martha Stewart is much much richer than I am… looks like she has around 200 trees (at one of her homes/farm in Bedford NY). Likely many folks on staff to maintain every inch of it too.
I have many more trees than she does…
So lets say i outdo her at 250 trees at $50 each from the best nurseries. Thats only $12500.
I have no doubt this property in the Hudson Valley is probably valued at many millions of dollars…
But really… a person could have more trees for less than $5K (Vaughn/CVN/Freedom Tree Farms).
I would rather have my diverse orchards than a rich persons less diverse or monoculture orchard myself.
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Obviously there are outliers – surely Alan can attest to this – but I’ll wager there’s an inverse relationship between home price and garden\orchard coolness.
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I worked a few years on Stewart’s orchard in Westport with the person she sold that property to. Her orchard was a complete mess. Lots of interesting varieties on vigorous rootstocks planted way too close together.
She interviewed me for a job as orchard keeper on her current property in Katonah and after I wasted a half a day walking her property and giving her advice she gave me a dozen eggs from her heirloom hens and told me I had the job. When I came to the property to do some work a week later, I was met by an armed guard who informed me there had been a change of plans.
It turned out that after meeting with me on Saturday she met with a Sav-a-tree foreman I know the next day and conveyed to him much of what I told her so they could do a better job of maintaining her orchard, which they do for free publicity. She never planned to hire me at all.
Her reputation in my area with working people is wretched. She thinks it great sport to rip working people off.
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