I chose the modified central leader form for my trees. At least I tried to train them this way. The decision is really driven by the short spacing of 8 ft between trees. A big portion of my trees are stone fruits which will grow naturally into open center forms. I would love to grow them as open center form trees. But the reality is that open center is much wider than central leader or modified central leader. I need to use the space efficiently. I only want to grow these trees 8~12 ft high, so central leader is too tall. As a good compromise, modified central leader is the best form in my case.
Some commercial growers find U shape is most efficient form. You can plant trees 4 ft apart this way. However the shape is just not that aesthetically pleasing to me. My trees are right by the side walk, so a row of normal shape trees (like ornamental trees) would look better and hopefully cause no complaints.
are you allowed and would you want to plant in the grass strip outside the sidewalk? that could give you an entire extra row of dwarf stuff like m27 apples
I don’t think HOA would allow it. Technically the sidewalk and the strip are not my property, but I am responsible for maintaining them.
Also it is very difficult to water the strip. Every year the grass die back a lot in this area. Sprinklers can not provide good coverage. Some people recommended using soaker hose. It is a better solution, but that means opening up the concrete side walk to install it. It is too much work.
Hi,
Have you looked at columnar trees. I do not know much about them but may be they could help you since you only need limited space for them. I am sure someone more experienced can give you some info.
This weekend is a super busy weekend for me. Among all things happening, the biggest event is the arrival of the 2 trees shipped to me on 1/7, exactly after 1 month.
The roots were dry, but they had not shrunk. I informed the seller and the decision was to give these 2 trees a try and see if they will bud out in early spring. I hope they will. If they do, it means they are really tough. If not, replacements will be sent. I soak their roots in Dyna-Gro K-L-N last night and planted them this morning in pots. Keep my fingers crossed.
Here is the tracking history of USPS. The trees left PA in Jan, then took a 1 month vacation somewhere and eventually showed up in NC, bypassing the destination in VA for whatever reason.
2 in 1 wintersweet arrived and I planted it in pot. If it was not snowing, I would probably have planted it in ground directly. It is not easy to grow wintersweet here because the soil in my yard is heavy clay. My last one died due to root rot. It costs quite some $$ to replace one. This time I am going to replace the soil and build a mound. Hope this one will survive this time.
The “green plum” arrived after 1 month of travel in USPS system. I planted it in pot and see if it will leaf out. It’s actually more of an apricot. It is the rootstock for grafting flowering apricots. The fruits are too sour to be eaten raw. However it’s the best for making plum wine. The fresh fruits are sold for $12/lb in store and available only occasionally. Some people say this is the same type of tree Ume Apricot sold in the market. I am not sure, but they are very similar.
Scions are coming in. I really appreciate all the support I got from our dear members here. My focus is mainly apricots, plums and pomegranates. I really enjoy growing them. Beautiful flowers and delicious fruits.
Tried my first Sapote. It’s a white sapote. very tasty (sweet). I am thinking to grow it from seeds. There were 2 kinds of sapotes for sale. I just picked the White Sapote. Next time if the Mamey sapotes are still there, I will definitely try them too.
Time flies. My Tomcot tree has fruited very well this year. It was planted in 2020 I believe.
It’s a long story. I will share more if I have time later. Last year it produced 3 fruits I think. This year it had at least 150. I think 150-200 range. Squirrels were playing with the tree and many big fruits dropped prematurely just because of that.
That’s how it looks on Jun 7. Then I went for a week-long vacation. I was debating if I should pick them before I left, but decided to wait because I really want to taste the fully tree ripen fruits.
I was out on vacation for a week. After I came back on Jun 16, pretty much all fruits were on the ground. Only a few left on the tree. Rabbits and squirrels have eaten them up a lot.
In summary, the mature time for Tomcot in my yard is around 6/10-6/15. The tree is a must grow in northern Virginia. Very low maintenance, beautiful flowers and structure. I am so lucky and happy to have invested time (and a little $$) to grow it.Thanks to this forum!
Leah Cot is doing so well this year in my yard, I love it. I am feeling lucky to have invested 4 years in this tree. I recommended to some of my friends and two of them have just ordered Leah Cot too.
It is not perfect because it got some typical minor issues, I will need advice from you guys here. But overall a big success. Last year I got only 1 fruit, but this year I picked 200+ fruits.Wild animals got some too.
The good thing is that the fruits can be kept in the frig for a week at least. And they are BIG, and taste SOOOOOO GOOD!
6/20 picked a few more. They are ready. Taste very good fresh off the tree, but still hard. I left a few on the counter. It turns out that they will taste so much better when left on the counter for 1 or 2 days when they turned a little bit softer.
6/22 started harvesting. Like everyone said, Apricots ripen pretty much at the same time. The taste is so good, just blows the stored bought apricots out of the water. And I understand why - because the store fruits were picked too early for transportation and shelf life.
6/23 the fruits start falling off from the tree, so I think it’s a good idea to harvest them all. And wild animals were coming by during the nights now. I got lucky, because that night a deer came by and found this tree. If I hadn’t picked most of them, probably nothing would be left. I did leave a branch for wild animals, so the deer did enjoy some really nice treats.
I’m also in Fairfax, VA and started planting fruit trees last year. I planted a Satsuma and a Santa Rosa plums last year but the Satsuma died on me. Sounds like I should get a Leahcot to replace my Satsuma. I notice you also have Rainier/Tartarian/Korean Giant/Hosui/Shinseiki, I also just put those in last year. How have those worked out for you in our area? Thanks
How does Leah Cot taste compared to tomcot? It seems that not many people grow it. Do you see any specific problems growing it in mid Atlantic region? I really want to get one after seeing your pictures.
How are your wintersweets doing? What kind of cultivars are they? I have the pure yellow ones.
@Shuimitao Different people have different taste buds. I like Leah Cot a lot, big, juicy and tasty, but my wife prefers Tomcot because it tastes more like the classic apricots.
Leah Cot may suffer some rot problems. I think maybe 10% of my Leah Cot got various degrees of rots. But not bad. I can live with that. I did not spray anything except for permethrin (to control plum curculio). @Fishsauce here is the answer to your question.
My wintersweet was a two variety combo - pure heart and butterfly. Unfortunately the pure heart branch died, but I did got butterfly flowers this year. Smells great. Actually it produced seeds too. I am trying to germinate these seeds and see if successful.
I am in Eastern Loudoun and this has me really hopeful. I have Goldrich, Harcot, Blenheim bare root trees coming in the spring from ACN, and I had no idea how they would do here. Are you doing any spraying?
I do slight spray on these apricot trees from May - Jun every 5-7 days to fight PCs. Otherwise no spray. It’s not very labor intensive. Apricot is definitely staying in my garden.
Li Jujube fruited this year with abundance. It is 12 feet tall now. It did not produce much in the past few years. Last year I added a new variety. It may have helped? The new jujube tree did not flower, so I am not sure.
I was in China last week. The best jujube was winter jujube for sale in supermarket, for about $1.6/lb. The taste is unbelievable. I just can’t stop eating them.
I know some of you have grown the winter variety here in US too. I am thinking to grow it too. I hope it will taste the same. It’s very difficult to know if the variety is true to its name. But at least I know how it should taste like.
I have this Bonfire Patio Peach Tree in ground for 5 years now. For whatever reason I never got any fruits. Animals got to them before I did. this year like a miracle there were a few left. I cut one open, there is no pest damage. I sprayed nothing on it. It’s not ripe yet, so I am still waiting.
I have two persimmon trees - Hana Fuyu and Matsumoto. They both produced a lot of fruits this year. Very interesting.
Also I have chocolate grafted. Hopefully I will get a few too.
I planted a Hachiya last year. It’s still young. I bought many from the supermarket in the past few years and really like its taste, so I decided to grow one of my own.
Figs are doing very well in my yard too, so I started growing more varieties, now 8 varieties. Olympian, CdN, Malta Black, Italian, Conadra, GE Neri, Voilette de Beaute, Celeste, Hardy Chicago, Marseille, LSU Purple.
But unfortunately I mowed over the Smith and killed it last year. Too bad. It’s hard to find.
So far VdB, Celeste and Hardy Chicago are the best performers. I love the VdB taste.
Olymmpian grows very big, but did not produce much.
LSU purple is in ground for 4 years now, but did not produce anything. It just gets bigger and bigger. I will probably remove it next year.
