Planning Brand New Mini-Orchard in Zone 7

Welcome Jason to the fruit forum.

Your plans are indeed ambitious, but I don’t discourage you from them. I had a similar journey many years ago. As they say, “Anything worth doing, is worth overdoing” :grin:

As you point out, one has to look at the downside of overdoing. In this case there are not a lot of downsides (mostly just your loss of spare time, and the cost of some trees). When I first started planting trees in my backyard, I planted a bunch of stuff I ended up pulling out because it didn’t work for me. But I learned a lot in the process. At one point I had about 70 trees in my backyard. It was a lot of experimenting, and a lot of fun at the time.

Ordering and planting trees is full of hope and promise.

Here’s some specific advice I might offer.

I don’t really know much about Northern VA (never even visited the area) but from comments of others, I gather that insect/disease pressure is significant. The summer rainfall, which is generally a good predictor of pest pressure is pretty close to KS/MO where I live (about 4-5" of rain in the summer months).

Based on that, I think I may be able to offer some advice which may be helpful.

On your apples, I might recommend you put them in harvest order. Same thing with all your other fruits. Keep the fruits separate if you can, but place them in harvest order, if you can. It makes for a bit easier harvesting, when they are in order. Not a big thing, but something to consider.

I’m not a big fan of (M7/ELMA7). The rootstock suckers like mad, which is a pain in the rear. I like MM111/ELMA111. It seems like a nice balance. Good anchorage. I also have some apple trees on standard roots. I’m able to keep them at pedestrian heights, but it does take a lot of pruning. And they are slower to come into production.

On apple cultivar selections, make sure you try some of these cultivars before you plant. Specifically Arkansas Black, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious.

There will probably be some members defend these choices, but the vast majority of apple growers would pan those choices. Most fruit growers call Red Delicious, “Red Undelicious”. Arkansas Black supposedly had a reputation for being slighly insect resistant, and also people resistant.

There are better choices for a golden apple, than Golden Delicious.

That was one of my mistakes in early apple planting. Planting varieties which honestly didn’t taste that great.

I grew Liberty. Easy to grow, but flavor was pretty ho hum. I also wonder if McIntosh will be any good there. I’ve never been a fan of it, and suspect it won’t be a top notch apple grown in your climate.

If you plan on using some of these varieties for cider making, then that’s a different story. Some of the more disease resistant apples would be great for that. Easy to grow, and generally very productive. For apples which you want volume and easy production, I think most of the PRI apples are good choices.

I would not plant Honeycrisp in VA. It doesn’t like heat and will likely be difficult to grow. I would recommend Pixie Crunch as a substitute. Same magic crunch, but without all the Honeycrisp growing baggage.

Apricots were a bust for me because of late spring frosts. I eventually cut them all down. But your area may not have that issue.

I didn’t like Sugar May peach. It had a really poor flavor here. For a white peach with some flavor, you might consider Raritan Rose. I also wouldn’t plant Cresthaven. It gets terrible bac. spot. I didn’t know this when I first planted it. I once met Bill Shane (MSU peach guru). We were discussing peach varieties and I complained about bac. spot problems Cresthaven. He said it’s unaffectionately known in the industry as “Spot Crest”.

Nectarines are hard to grow in my climate, but you do have some good choices if you want to try them. I grew about 15 different varieties or so, at one time. I eventually pulled them all out.

Nectafest the tops in terms of flavor. It was out of this world in flavor intensity. I might question Arctic Sweet. I’ve not grown that one, but I have grown other Zaiger creations, and they typically aren’t bred for wet climates, which means they are generally harder to grow here.

In terms of pears, you have some fireblight magnets there, which will likely kill them. And it will mean more fireblight pressure on your apple trees.

Get rid of Bartlett. There are lots of Bartlett type pears which taste as good, and have decent fireblight resistance. Harrow Delight is one example. @clarkinks can give you a lot more advice in that department.

I did grow sweet cherries at one time. They are hard to grow here. I eventually pulled them all out. Mazzard is a good rootstock for clay soils, but sweet cherries are very vigorous on Mazzard. Look for varieties which are crack resistant. I definitely wouldn’t try to grow Bing in your area. Rainier would also probably be hard to grow in VA. Just make sure you put in the right varieties for cross pollination. There are all kind of charts on the internet for that.

Your Captain Jack isn’t going to do a whole lot of good for pests in your area. Neem just doesn’t do much on major pests in rainy climates.

Here’s a thread on Neem. You may pay special attention to a post from @Vortom . He’s from VA. Thomas hasn’t posted in a few weeks, but perhaps he may chime in and offer some helpful comments on your new fruit tree plans.

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