I’ve been looking for these, thank you for showing me where to go! (Realized I forgot to copy the vanilla! That one too!)
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My rule of thumb is five new trees per year max. By the time I plant, water and fence them, that’s enough work. After that it stops being fun. Unless you plan to spend every spare moment on your plants and then sell the produce, you will have plenty to putter with and harvest with five new trees per year. And then your kids grow up and move away, so you wonder what to do with all that fruit. You retire, want to travel, etc.
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Oh boy, I have 10 shrubs, 7 trees, and 11 tree seedlings to grow out in planters. Even with the seedlings I still have to dig holes and put the planters in the ground. I think each tree and shrub will take at least 4 hours for all the work just digging and augmenting soil and building cages and etc. Maybe I should scale back a bit?
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I didn’t know Honeycrisp tasted good that far south? Didn’t we have comments in other threads that the flavor sucks in Oklahoma and further south?
And Contender Peach is one of the handful that can grow in Minneapolis. We always feel like we miss out on the “good” peaches from down south. Is there a cultivar you might like better that is more centered on zone 8?
You may consider renting a tool to dig from a big box store or tool rental.
Packing in as many trees I can in the little space we have left:
Adding a closely spaced (5ft) apple espalier:
Hunt Russet
Holstein
KdS
Newton Pippin
Stayman Winesap
Ashmead’s Kernel
Plums (as hedge row):
Mirabelle de Nancy (euro)
Reine Claude (euro)
Blue Damson (euro)
Mariposa
Beauty
Burbank plumcot
Citrus, in pots:
Buddha’s hand
Seville Sour Orange
Limetta
Calamansi
Santa Teresa lemon
Trovita Orange
Bears’ Lime (replacement)
Also adding another Pakistani mulberry and a strawberry verte fig. And a blueberry shrub (Sunshine Blue).
Still have a little room left, maybe for a few more feijoas (I am so in love with this fruit).
I second the advice about not taking on everything at once. I’ve been packing in the plantings because I had spent over a decade unable to have a garden, and spent all that time planning for it, observing what worked in my area, talking to local plant folks etc. I was feeling impatient. Besides, my partner finds the garden to be immensely therapeutic and likes to spend every free minute on garden projects, so the work around here gets done surprisingly fast. It’s a lot work tho.
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Adding in this year:
Strawberry:
Cabrillo
Monterey
Denali
San Andreas
Thinking about giving each their own beds
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Hi @benthegirl:
Right now it would seem past a number like 25 shrubs and trees, my graph forms a corner and the more trees & shrubs I add, the expectation value for the number of plants at the end of the season doesn’t increase. It’s like getting asymptotic there. Stated a different way, if I start trying to add more than 25 subjects, all that happens is I look at my data records and the cursor jumps to the censor date field like it expects me to write them in already.
Seedlings are a different story. I can handle more of them.
On a different note, in my neighborhood, after planting 75 white spruce, the upper bound of the 95% confidence interval for P(survival) after 3 years is below 12.3%. I’m not planting them anymore.
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My 2025 reservations for Zone 4b:
Trees:
1 Mulberry: Illinois Everbearing.
1 Persimmon: Meader.
1 Pear: SummerCrisp, for multgrafting.
1 Chestnut: Belle Epine.
1 Quince: Aromatnaya.
1 Baby Shipova Mountain Ash Pear.
1 Medlar: Nefle Tardive.
Shrubs:
2 Goumi berry: Sweet Scarlet & Red Gem.
1 Female Seaberry: Titan.
2 Honeyberry Haskap: Aurora & Indigo Treat.
1 Lingonberry: Koralle.
2 Black Currant: 1 Titania & 1 Minaj Smyriou, for white pine blister rust disease resistance.
(Possibly, considering cancelling d/t workload) 2 more Black Currants: Blackdown & Belaruskaja.
Tree Seedlings:
7 Silver Buffaloberry.
4 Shagbark Hickory.
Native restoration:
32 Native prairie flower plant plugs.
32 Native shade forest understory plant plugs.
Overseeded native sundial lupine & indigos & prairie grasses & sedges (task completed).
Already requested for 2026:
2 layered clonal Chestnuts: Precoce Migoule & Bisalta #3.
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We’ll have to see! We’re new to this, so anything can be amended with just more time.
It is a strange year for adding on this year. My apple stick buys were put on restriction. But the wife has been on a fruit plant buying frenzy.
Apples I got a consolation prize Dorsett Golden that was on sale and looked very good. My Sticks this year are:
Mank’s Codlin, Lord Burghley. Shockley-Grizzle, Langleigh Delight, Annie Elizabeth, Appletown Wonder, Dixie Red Delight, Black Limbertwig, Etter’s Gold, Gascoyne Scarlet, Hall and Kimrome. Possibly Kittageesee.
Added Methley and Golden Plum to pollinate with my Mariana. Just missed it.Golden is starting, Mariana is ending, Maybe next year.
Added 2 Blue Java Banana, A pineapple. 2 egg size Pinneaple Guava. One that makes quarter size fruit. They are getting the variety names for me.
Pears we bought the Bartlett tree that was marked down but looks great. And a Moonglow to pollinate. Also bought a pear stick of Summer Blood Birne. Should be getting a Spaulding tree.
Lastly we have not even begun the citrus rebuilding project are the water logged most out. Still have a Meyer Lemon and a surviving rootstock going.
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I almost got put on restriction when I put a rooted aronia in the fridge briefly during the warm spell.
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Went to Costco today…they have some fruit trees outside. Plum, pear, peach.
Guess what varieties they are? No way of knowing. They are literally tagged as 'various pears ", etc.
Who cares if the price is good if you have no idea what variety you are buying. Could waste years of caring and growing only to find out it will never fruit for you.
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I’m sorry about your husband, if that were me, I don’t know if I would share any of my garden bounty with him. Especially if sabotage were involved.
I commend you on your hard work and I hope you get more wonderful things to eat than you can ever imagine.
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I’m sure you’ve already found it, but just in case, Isons has Kiowa.
Given the size of my tiny lot already packed - I thought - full of native gardens, I’ve gone crazy this winter. I just read and read and order and order. The trees (except the minis) are all getting potted until late fall when we prep the remaining front lawn space for a little fruit tree orchard with duo and trio plantings DWN/Ann Ralph “grow a little fruit tree” style. Many will be potted for life and it looks like my car might be getting bumped from the garage to the driveway in winter. Currently have arriving/already landed:
2 satsuma (1 I couldn’t cancel on the “wrong” rootstock for my fall plantings, so will use it and the burgundy to learn to graft/make frankenscions)
Burgundy plum
Rubysweet plum
Flavor king pluot
Carmine jewel
Rainier (expect this to die, it was an impulse buy before I started spending 4 hours every night reading)
Arctic start white nectarine
Arctic babe mini
Necta zee mini
Triumph apple
Crimsoncrisp apple
Galarina apple
Nikitski ranni (aka crimson sky- that threw me for a loop when I read they were the same on here and cancels the doppelgänger)
Red silk pomegranate
A few more blueberries: liberty, sweetheart
Strawberries: Albion, Flavorfest, earliglow
Another Viking aronia
Black consort currant
Josephine raspberry to add to my Caroline’s
3 box raspberry shortcakes from HD that shockingly are doing great
And a gratitude grape for the grape trellis I’m building next to my remodeled veg beds! I expect it to die…and then, I’ll be good listener and get a Mars.
Desperately wanted: Issai kiwi. But, try as I might, I could not reason/draw how to fit that trellis on my microscopic property without it taking over. Next lifetime.
I restrained myself and didn’t order citrus/tropicals. But, I have a long list for next winter along with a few other cherries!
I think that’s it. I have changed my orders at One Green World, Cummins, Stark and Burpee too many times to count as I read more. The mini nectarines are coming from raintree and are more than I wish I had spent, but, I became obsessed. (No trees from starks and burpee, just berries and I think burpees plants are nicer) Thank goodness the orders have started arriving so I can’t add anymore trees! I also ordered from Willis where I got a compact Stella last fall, they sent me the wrong size burgundy plum last week, and I have yet to hear back from them. (They are slow to respond to email, at best.) Willis ships their pomegranates as bareroots and the one I got for $22 is nice 2.5’ with beautiful roots/ bonus over the gallon pots sold everywhere else. Cummins and OGW win for customer service!
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The one they sell online is something different than the older Josephine that was discussed years ago… unless you got it from someone who still has the plants that were once sold.
Just giving you a heads up in case.
I too bought them along with many many other folks… so YMMV
Oh, bummer. I got it based on an older thread but missed the thread you just linked saying that hand picked is definitely not it. I wonder if I should plant it?
Go for it… maybe you will like it.
I know most here are used to it, but I’m still fascinated by a fruit tree full of blooms.
Hoping for the second year of fruit. Time will tell.
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