I’ve wanted to plant something against the west wall of my barn for years, but I haven’t ever had any good ideas I’ve been confident about. Maybe there aren’t any good options, but that’s my question for you all. I have plenty of space to plant things elsewhere, but this is space I’m not doing anything else with and it’s in a busy enough area that I haven’t ever had any deer trouble, unlike the majority of my small farm. The barn has metal siding, so I assume that would further intensify the blazing afternoon summer sun/heat, which is plenty hot in North Carolina already. The barn roof also slopes to the east and west, and there’s no gutter on the west side, so if I were to plant anything it would get pounded by rain run-off pouring off the roof when it did rain. The soil is pretty good there, though, and it’s very well drained and sits on top of a small hill/bank.
What do you think of jujubes? It seems they’d take the intense afternoon heat well, but would they tolerate shade all morning? Even if I only got a quarter of the crop I’d get from a full sun location, I’d be happy with that when my alternative is to do nothing with this space.
What about figs? Or some kind of marginally cold hardy citrus that I could give some kind of minimal winter protection?
Just a little further west, further out away from the wall, I originally planted Asian pear trees, and I still have three left, but I think now that was a terrible place to plant them, as I think the dew sits on them longer because the sun doesn’t hit them until mid to late morning (because they’re in the morning shade of the barn), and I suspect that’s exacerbated problems with fireblight. So my inclination is definitely to avoid any species with disease problems like fireblight or fruit rots that thrive with dew/moisture.
Any other ideas? Whatever I’d plant I’d have to keep to within 10-12 feet of the wall, so I wouldn’t want to plant anything that would spread out too much (although height isn’t really a concern).
What about hazelnuts? Squirrels might be relatively shy there, too.
Asian persimmons?
Thanks for any ideas or advice!
I would plant some of the more cold-hardy figs there, along with a few pomegranates. You might consider:
Hardy Chicago
Celeste
Strawberry Verte
Black Bethlehem
Sal’s Gene EL
Persian White
Marseilles Black VS
Battaglia Green
Salavatski
Surh-Anor
Lyubimy
Kazake
They would love the extra heat from the wall. They would benefit from protection in winter-- wrap the area with burlap and stuff with leaves for insulation. This would minimize die-back from the cold, and maximize fruit production.
Cousin,
I just checked your page and now remember you are already growing some figs and poms. 
Thanks for mentioning pomegranates, Matt. I hadn’t thought of them for that spot.
As far as figs or poms loving extra heat, I don’t think there would be any winter benefit, because the winter sun is too far to the south, so it mainly just be extra heat in the summer when it’s surely already plenty hot, wouldn’t you think? And I think our prevailing winds are from the west, so I don’t think the barn would really offer any protection from winter winds either. It just seems like the location offers all sorts of disadvantages and no true advantages, which is why I’ve left it unplanted so many years. Pomegranates sound like a good idea, though. I guess I just didn’t think of pomegranates because I haven’t planted very many yet. It would be easy to try one or two there for starters.
I wouldn’t do jujubes, they like all day sun to produce a decent crop. Pawpaws might be OK, they are tolerant of sun once they get used to it and won’t mind the lack of morning sun. They produce tons of fruit in half sun. Figs are another option, the crop would be less but figs have no problems at all with massive heat and don’t get diseases. Poms I would keep in full sun, at least based on the productivity (well lack thereof) in some I have in part shade.
not sure how frigid your winters get, but kumquats, calamondins, and certain trifoliates might be worth a try.
ours survive the freeze-drying desert conditions down to 16F.
We see high single digits in an average winter, but we’ve gotten very close to 0 the last two winters, so I guess I’d be talking about 16 degrees worth of protection. I think if I were to go to the trouble of buying 16 degree of protection, I should probably invest that effort in a prime location, but maybe there are some lesser citrus options a little hardier than kumquats. I see very little talk about citrus on this forum. Has anyone here trialed cold hardy citrus in the eastern US? I haven’t been on the citrus forum in a while, but I might ask for advice there, too.
trifoliate might be worth a try. They can survive 3F if big enough.
you could try planting seeds in spring if you’re on a budget, they grow pretty fast.
Your areas doesn’t look too bad for growing but looks like May - Sept is the season. On the west side that area will stay cold in the winter until the sun gets over to warm it up.
I was thinking a trellis up that wall and grapes. I notice the Forsyth Co. 4H sold Mars and Himrod at their most recent plant sale. Provide shade for the wall in the summer and with pruning fairly early when dormant the barn should get good heat from the afternoon sun in winter.