I’m a an hour south, closer to Roseburg. I really wish I could have gotten videos to load. I called a coworker and asked if she heard my pasture and she had no idea what I was talking about because it sounded like river. While I was on the phone a dead deer, a few balls, and a folding aluminum chair went by from somewhere further up the road. Today except for debris piles it almost looks like it didn’t happen.
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What stream was the source of your floodwaters?
Portland TV news showed video yesterday, ironically from Drain, Oregon.
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Last spring I planted a Lapins sweet cherry tree (dwarf rootstock) in a place where I had just removed an older sweet cherry tree. The buds on that tree never opened that year, but now they are swollen and are about to open. I’ve never had that happen to any tree before. Is this something that anyone else has experienced? Can I expect normal growth this year? Thanks.
Have you had good luck with an aprium? I had a tree when I lived in Socal and the tree bloomed reliably for years. Its was covered with bees and blooms, but we only ever got one piece of fruit.
Horrible name for a town, huh? I live next to a creek that drains into the Umpqua.
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More fun stuff from the flood. The tanks and pipes were fine 2 weeks ago when I went up the hill to do some pruning and dig some holes. I guess what happened is water pressure was too great and busted off a pipe from the last of the four tanks, and then broke all the pipe, which remaining broken, leaked out all this summer’s water. Very soggy for a hill, and the holes are full of water. So now I can’t plant there, and have something else to fix. 
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This is the first year of serious blooms on my 2 Flavor Delight apriums. They are well past 50% bloom now but my Beauty plums finally got going (they are located quite a ways away), so I broke off a couple small branches of blossoms and hand pollinated the FD.
Might get lucky.
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This is the first year with good bloom density (it bloomed a handful of flowers last year) I’ll know in a month if it sets any fruit.
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Hoping we have some breaks in the rain and tornadoes this week. My Asian plums, cherries and peaches are all blooming, so getting some pollinators around would be nice. The euro pears, euro plums, apples, and berries are a bit further behind.
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How did your nectaplum bloom turn out this spring? If you recall, my nectaplum didn’t bloom at all last year. Well this year it’s had a prolific bloom. So it’s looking like a nice crop will be forthcoming. Shiro and Burbank plums are also having a great bloom again, as is the Arctic babe nectarine.
Also the clone I made last year from the nectaplum is over waist tall and has several blooms. Is much farther along that I would have expected. I took the cutting from the very top of the tree that was super vigorous and evidently that carried over with the 6” section that I rooted last March.
Both my nectaplums bloomed. One on Viking rootstock in a pot was covered with flowers while one in the ground on Citation had few dozen flowers.
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I hope these nectaplums on citation outgrow the pattern of alternate beating. Last year my in ground citation rootstock tree only produced a smattering of blooms, not even a dozen in total, now this year it’s blooming as well as it did in 2023. Is that pattern noticeable for you as well? Hopefully it’s just because they’re young.
Has the Viking rootstock so far shown more consistency? How about suckering?
So far the citation hasn’t produces a single sucker. Every other plum tree I have produces many. The unknown euro variety that was here when I bought the place is a thicket from all the suckers. I yank them up with roots already attached and use for rootstock. So far they haven’t rejected brooks, greengage, Opal, or nectaplum. It’s definitely worth keeping your eyes peeled for an old euro plum thicket growing in a park or field.
I’m also anxious to see how the nectaplum on its own roots performs. Already I can say it is super vigorous.
Mine are just a year old. From what I have understood with peaches/nectarines they reliably form flower buds every year. Perhaps the cold snap in 2024 killed your nectaplum buds?
I don’t see any suckering in the pot. It does have high bloom rate compared to citation, on my tree there is minimum one flowered every leaf node.
Do you know what kinds of conditions will do that to the fruit buds? The worst of the cold was in January when the tree is usually deep in slumber. Though I can’t remember all the conditions leading up to the cold snap. Had it been warmer than usual? That sounds kind of familiar. Maybe it wasn’t fully dormant when we stayed below freezing for nearly 60 hours.
If you see the Viking suckering you can air layer it to create a brand new rootstock. I know they aren’t really expensive to buy, but there is something nice about having your own supply of rootstocks. You can do trees with neat combinations.
Citation doesn’t seem to produce suckers. Kind of unfortunate considering how difficult the rootstock is to find/purchase.
If you have abandoned plum trees that are thickets of suckers chances are the rootstock is St Julian. This used to be a popular stone fruit stock, especially on plums, up through the early 2000’s before others took its place.
I actualy still see it used (raintree, go figure) but its negative side like EXTREME suckering and shorter life span have taken it off most nurseries lists.
I had quite a few plums on it and a few peaches. Peaches all died and the plums i eventually got fed up with and removed.
The more i tryed to control the suckering close to the tree, the more the tree would send extended suckers further out. My rows are 13’ apart. I had St Julian suckers coming up in the next row, which was pears, in the next row, which was apples. It took several years to get rid of all the St Julian.
Does anyone here do any millwork in western Washington state?
Are we able to grow all the hardy kiwis here?
Mine haven’t done well, but I suspect if I amended the soil more and watered more, I might have been more successful
