My orchard in Bixby Oklahoma

14 trees, 19 varieties. Peaches plums apples pear and 1 cherry here. Have 3 pawpaw’s and a fuyu persimmon on the other side of the yard. Citrus row is on the side by the greenhouse. This is the First year that late Frost didn’t get any fruit so now I’m thinking I need to watch for bugs but I’m not sure really what to do.

28 Likes

Looks great but, how are you growing Asian Persimmon and citrus in zone 6?

3 Likes

My zone is actually 7a. Typically though we have 7B to 8a winters. And when we do get and cold and it’s very short lived. Anyways the persimmon do just fine here. My citrus I cover up with frost cloths and heat them with Christmas lights.

1 Like

Okay, I need more details about this citrus orchard. What cultivars, rootstock, age of plants outside, how much frost cloth and pictures of course!

1 Like

I’ll do my best. Peaches I have red haven, Elberta, cresthaven, loring. Nectarine is harko. Apples I have Jonathan, red Fuji, honey crisp, winesap&granny smith on same tree. Plums I have Santa Rosa, methley and superior all on one tree. Pluot I have flavor king, queen and dapple dandy on one. Pears are seckel and Ayers. One Stella cherry. The root stocks are unknown other than loring, harko and the Pluots are DWN trees so that may narrow them down. I planted the first 8-10 spring of 2017. Added the rest last spring except for cresthaven which is new this year. My fuyu is on it’s second year and was a 5 gallon tree last year. Citrus are Washington naval, shiranui(aka sumo) Meyers lemon, Armstrong satsuma, miho satsuma. Meyers and Armstrong are getting yanked out for poor performance. I use 2 layers of typical white frost cloth and 3 strands of C9 Christmas lights that come on below 38. Any temps below 20 outside I throw a plastic tarp over them. I’ll post some pics of them tomorrow or try and remember too. Lol.

4 Likes

So if you have a low of 5-10 degrees the Xmas lights/cloth are keeping trees from dying back?

1 Like

Like I said when it gets that cold I’ll throw a tarp over them also and the lights keep it at 42 f or higher. My second winter doing it. Nice thing about using the white frost cloths if they also increase the temperature on a sunny day but don’t overwarm it. Overlast winner I was ranging from 42 to 75 all winter long.

3 Likes

I’m in the OKC metro. You’ve given me some new winter projects.

Your orchard is coming along nicely. Great work.

1 Like