Hi I am a new member and found this forum by looking at posts on a fig site.I have been reading a number of posts on the forum and the info has been really helpful. I have a lot to learn.I have been clearing a area of trees to start a small fruit orchard and have been collecting fruit trees and placing them in pots until I can finish clearing the area. I think I may have gotten carried away with excitement with this project and may have more trees than I can place in the area. So I need some advice. How many trees do you think I can put in area that is 60 ft in length and 90 ft in width and of the following trees what would you plant in the area. Is there any you would not recommend using. Is there some trees that may be more productive . I am in the Fredericksburg Virginia area. I also have some figs that I am growing in pots that I would like to place in the area. I appreciate your help. Thanks.
APPLES
Winesap
Granny Smith
Wolf River
Arkansas Black Spur
Golden Delicious
Red Delicious
Jonagold
PEARS
Ayers
Kieffer
Bartlett
Moonglow
PEACHES
Elberta
New Haven
PLUMS
Damson
Methley
Shiro
Santa Rosa
Starking
Delicious
Itilton, I do not know the root stock but the category for each tree is as follows:
APPLES
Winesap
Semi-dwarf
Granny
Semi-dwarf
Wolf River
Semi-dwarf
Arkansas Black Spur
Semi-dwarf
Golden Delicious
Semi-dwarf
Red Delicious
Semi-dwarf
Jonagold
Semi-dwarf
PEARS
Ayers
Semi-dwarf
Kieffer
Semi-dwarf
Bartlett
Semi-dwarf
Moonglow
Semi-dwarf
PEACHES
Elberta
Semi-dwarf
New Haven
Dwarf
PLUMS
Damson
dwarf
Methley
Standard
Shiro
dwarf
Santa Rosa
Semi-dwarf
Starking
Delicious
dwarf
PLUMOTS
Spring Satin
dwarf
PERSIMMONS
FUYU
ICHI
CHERRIES
NorthStar
dwarf
Montmorency
semi-dwarf
APRICOTS
TOMCAT
Standard
Sweetheart
dwarf
i got a pieace of advice last spring when i said i wanted to grow only the spring satin plumcot, and was given the pieace of advice to check out other plumcots/pluots
and am happy i took that advice
i have spent many hours thinking about what plum varieties to grow and have narrowed it down to
shiro plum
bubblegum plum
weeping santa rosa plum
emerald beaut plum
emerald drop pluot
flavor supreme pluot
i have no firsthand experience with these plums but have done alot of homework
about them and have found them to be very favorable varieties
What a lovely list of fruit. I am not familiar with how spacing works in your area, but remember, you can always graft over or add other varieties to a tree. Once the fruit bug bites, it rarely is removable.
I am only going to answer about the apples, the pears, and the apricot, since I am not sure on the others.
The apple varieties look good for your area. The pears look good as well, with the exception of Bartlett, which gets fireblight pretty readily. So unless you’re willing to spray the Bartlett early and often, I’d get rid of it.
Semi-dwarf actually can encompass quite a lot of different sizes, especially when it comes to apples. For some of the smaller semi-dwarfs for apples, 8 ft might be enough from one to the other. For some of the larger semi-dwarfs, 15 ft + might be optimum. I’d try really hard to find out the rootstock. If you cannot, I’d go 12 ft in between trees as a sort of compromise, understanding you could either be wasting a bit of space or will have to heavily prune if it’s not quite as dwarfing.
The pears, if they’re semi-dwarves, I’m going to guess they’re on OHxF 87, in which case I would leave no less than 15 feet. It’s POSSiBLE they’re on quince, and quince is more dwarfing than the 87. But since quince is fireblight susceptible, that wouldn’t be a great choice for your location, so I’m going to assume you got them from a nursery/retailer that picked the best rootstock for your area.
Tomcot apricot is probably one of the best choices you can make as far as apricots go. On standard, I’d probably give it 20 feet.
Note that these numbers can change. If you’re going to be pruning every week, or using espalier or tall spindle, you can probably cram the trees closer. if you’re going for more hands off, or minimal spray, I’d try to leave as much room as possible (very close trees= more disease pressure).
VSOP, Thank you for the information. It is very helpful. If I get rid of the Bartlett do you have a recommendation for a different Pear Tree. I actually got the trees from several big box stores and Stark Brothers. I really do appreciate the advice. Thanks again.
My experience was Seckel has a bit more blight resistance than Bartlett but not enough for me to keep it. I removed all my grafted Seckel branches. Living where you are, I would make every decision on apples and pears with fireblight in mind: variety; sun; spacing; fertilizer; pruning.
I’d go east to west. I’d also suggest planting your trees that will end up being the tallest in the north and smallest in the south, that way your big trees won’t be shading out your littler trees in a few years.
I’m on the western side of the NC Piedmont, officially zone 7b but in somewhat of a frost pocket and with a lot of 7a winters lately, coming close and possibly even scratching 6b a few winters ago. In my experience, fireblight resistance is critically important with pears but less so with apples. I’ve had minor strikes on most of my apple varieties, but I have yet to lose a whole tree, and the worst case I had was with a supposedly very resistant variety (Enterprise) that subsequently recovered. Besides planting resistant pear varieties, I think what I think is critically important with pears and fireblight (in my location and in my experience) is planting where the sun will hit them dry off the dew very first thing in the morning and ideally in more exposed areas where they’ll get more drying winds, too. I don’t have a lot of experience with Shenandoah (pear) so far, but a couple years of fruiting have me wanting to recommend it already.
The trees I think may be least likely to set and mature usable fruit for you are the plums, apricots, and peaches. Besides pest and diseases (especially PC and brown rot), late spring freezes are especially hard on those fruits.
Your list seems plenty long enough already, so I’d probably recommend taking good care of what you’ve already got and then maybe adding other things once the trees you have now are better established and better able to withstand a dry spell or tolerate some weed competition, but at some point the things I’d really want to add to your list (besides the figs you already mentioned) if I were you would be hardy kiwis (which are possibly my absolute favorite fruit and are very hard to find if you don’t grow them yourself), pawpaws (either grafted trees or seedlings to graft later), astringent varieties of Asian persimmons (both as a hedge against squirrels and for the different fruit qualities from the non-astringents), a Rosseyanka hybrid persimmon (which I think fills a very different niche from both the Asians and natives), a mulberry or two, rabbiteye type blueberries (which are outstandingly reliable for me and super rewarding), a Pristine apple (which is a very early disease resistant variety), muscadines (both dark and bronze varieties) – those are all things I think would be more likely to succeed than the stone fruits – and probably some jujubes and fuzzy kiwis, too. Some of those things, particularly the pawpaws and hardy kiwis (and maybe even the muscadines), would probably tolerate a little shade, so you might be able to plant them nearer your woods where you wouldn’t want to plant stone fruit or pomes anyway.
For better disease resistance, I would plant a less related tree next to each one. For example, next to an apple-a cherry. Next to the cherry-a persimmon. Next to the persimmon, then a pear, then a peach, etc. The bugs have to cross over something they don’t want to eat, where one of your good guy cavalry may be hiding (ladybugs, lacewings, praying mantis, spiders, wasps, etc) These guys can eat the bugs that are trying to take over.
John S
PDX OR
Not to contradict VSOP, but one other approach would be to plant at the max distance apart now. Then if those trees tend to the smaller semi size, you can fill in between them in the future (when you will no doubt be wanting to put in more trees). The only risks with this are: it would leave more open space now which may not be attractive, and if the current trees end up being mid-way between small and large, it may not leave you enough room to plant between them (unless you go to dwarf sized).
As suggested, if you can find out the actual root stocks used, then you should have a better idea of how large these trees will become.