0.45 on each of them just above graft union. Rootstock caliper 0.6 and 0.63.
I’m happy with them!!
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Bob,
I read the link of Red Date nursery again. It looks like the varieties that taste “excellent” like Gaga, Maya are small fruit. I also need to stick with early to mid season varieties.
I am interested in Sandia but it is a very late ripening variety 
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It’s always disappointing that you can’t raise a watermelon which tastes like a sweet cherry! 
Actually, from the site KFC and Liuyuexian are medium to large and Liuyuexian is listed as early/mid season, so there is hope. But even small to mid isn’t bad. I’m even OK with Honeyjar, which they classify as small.
What I really need is for them to be more productive. Right now, my So is the only one which is especially useful from that perspective. And it took some time to get there. They call So only “good” for fresh eating, but it is still very tasty. At least as far above Shanxi Li, as Honey Jar is above So.
I should probably try out Dragon, Teapot, and Mushroom, but I think their fruit was described as pretty unexciting in the jujube Facebook group. Of the 3, Dragon would be the most interesting from a landscaping perspective.
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Somehow, my SC and HJ have been quite productive. Shanxi Li bloomed profusely but set a lot less.
I don’t mind excellent small jujbes. I just wish for large tasty ones 
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Here is a couple of jujus from England’s that I just received. Very tall ~5 foot after planting. 1/2” caliper.
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Those look fantastic Katy!!!
Your hubby looks thrilled to be planting more trees for the boss! Hahahah
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Wowza! I look forward to the reports you give us on these in the years ahead! One of the smartest things a hobby grower could do is grow more jujubes and less of the other fruits! Katy is a smart one! No doubt. I need to become smarter. Hahahahaha
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At this moment I might agree with you…we are facing a hard freeze the next three nights. Jujubes are safe but my peaches, plums, and two of the pears are toast for the year… jujus, persimmons, and most of the mulberries are good to go. Was looking at the pictures of your mystery jujube… Nice find!!!
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What varieties?
Shanxi Li and Honey Jar
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I thought that you already had both of those. I’m surprised that you didn’t go for some of Cliff’s more exotic offerings. Even if you had to plant a smaller tree, they grow pretty quick in your climate. In the first year you get 3 years of my growth.
I really like that he sends out extra-tall trees. UPS has a shipping surcharge above 48", but it is worth it.
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my unsolicited advice, painful and counter-intuitive it might sound(since height is considered a premium), would be to take a couple or more node segments from super-tall bare-roots, especially if roots have little fine root hairs. Not only will it increase chances of the bare-root surviving the severe root-pruning(higher root volume-to-stem ratio is more likely to survive), and if the bare-root still does not survive, you’d still be looking forward to having secured for yourself a successful graft or two.
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Thanks, but I have to go against that advice for a few reasons:
- I can put the taller trees in locations were low growth is blocked, like near a fence. If I put a small tree in the same spot, it wouldn’t get any sun to grow with.
- I often plant in a visible location (ie as landscaping), so having a bigger tree is a good thing, even if it doesn’t grow quite as much in year #1.
- I’ve got plenty of wood coming in for interesting varieties, so no need to get more from the trunks. I have most/all of the big ones already anyway.
Maybe it can get them above deer level better too…But most of the properties I currently have jujubes at don’t seem to have deer (knock on wood), as they are in more urban areas, close to Rt 1/I-95. The 2 properties in more rural areas, deer completely killed everything in the first year. Thankfully I sold one and am selling the other.
I’ve planted shorter (pruned) trees and they still don’t grow much in year #1. The best initial growth I’ve had so far is from the Grow Organic trees from last Feb. I’m not sure if it was from their generous roots, or because I planted so early it gave the roots a chance to develop more fine hairs. I planted again from them this year in Jan and have a couple other orders (Bay Laurel, Chinese Red Date, and Englands) coming soon.
From the initial success that Mamung has had, it sounds like I should be fertilizing more in year one, so I’m going to work on that this year.
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that advice probably only applies to growing bare-roots in arid regions. I have received several bare-roots with hardly any fine roots, which leafed out but died when it got warmer, and the preemptive approach of taking some budwood saved me a year of waiting to find out what the fruits would be like.
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Not a bad idea when it is a new and potentially hard to replace variety…
I don’t think it ever gets that warm/dry here (I wouldn’t mind some more warmth now…). Instead, most of the issue I’ve had is on small trees where the scion/variety never leafs out. Even that doesn’t happen much (once from a C+ in the initial list and once from a good grower). This past year I had a strange issue where a couple of (large) trees were very delayed, leafing out in August/September. They were right next to each other and in an area that the grass wasn’t growing very well. When I dug down to plant another tree in that general vicinity, I noticed that the soil was very dry. I was digging in the afternoon after a morning shower dropped 1/2" of rain and there were 5" of rain in the previous 3 days. The soil under the top 2 inches was still dry. So I mixed in a bit more organic content for the new one and will make sure to water extra on the others as well, assuming they come back after a 1-2 month long growing season last year.
Edit: The one that leafed out in August came back normally this spring. The one which leafed out at the end of September did not, which isn’t too surprising as it didn’t have a very long growing season.
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I did not have Shanxi Li. I do have Honey Jar and love it. My two year old tree did not grow much last year and fruited okay but not great. We had a hard drought and it really suffered all year. Because I want to graft to my seedlings I’m also trying to build up my own scion bank. So just call it insurance… Of the fruit I took to work last year the Honey Jar was the best received so I want to have an abundance of fruit of that variety when I start hitting the local markets. And I HAVE to have plenty left for me…
. (I plan to market trees but want to have fruit samples to help sell the trees.)
I have ordered some scion from Cliff of some of the varieties that are not well known. Plan to make my own.
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most bare-root jujus i obtained from wetter regions, so they all get shell-shocked and need acclimatization.
i totally agree with need for height, especially in your region where jujus need to get as much direct sunlight, and the only way is to outgrow surrounding taller trees and structures.
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How is your Orange Beauty doing? Any fruit yet? Hopefully, this will be the year for me.
Tony
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Hopefully this will be the year for me too. It was grafted onto a juvenile rootstock so maybe not but I hope to see how it tastes soon!!
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orange beauty was precocious on sugarcane interstem, bearing fruits on same year of grafting.
i posted it here but couldn’t find if i took a photo of ripe fruits