I’ve got very limited space. I really just grow in my front yard so I’ve got room for about 6-8 semi-dwarf trees and about a 10 by 20 ft or so area for berries. Most of those plants were zone pushers that have since died, various gooseberries and colored currants plus some rasberries that seem to be unsuited to the red clay soil that I didn’t seem to amend enough.
Right now I’ve got a quad grafted plum from Raintree. I’m pretty sure one of the successful grafts is Shiro, the other is either Methley or Beauty. The last is red foliage so I believe it is Hollywood. The Hollywood seems to be the worst of the lot by a lot so far.
If I redo the entire area I’ll probably try to put in a single wire trelis for a muscadine vine and give some erect bramble types another try.
Which varieties do you grow? I already have a Stanley, Mount Royal, and Superior in my front yard I got for super cheap that are mature enough to produce next year. Basically when the local nursery closed down I tried to get 1 of everything that looked healthy, given these were 3-5 year old potted trees for $30 each.
Shiro and Spring Satin. Spring Satin is a plumcot. I really do like Spring Satin To be honest they produce well but I am considering pulling them due to the insect and disease pressure. This can be managed with a good and consistent spray schedule. Unfortunately for a number of stone fruits spraying is key in our area. As a suggestion you could look at Juliet Bush cherry and muscadines. There are a number of more experienced growers on the site that can give you some advice for VA. I believe @Robert is also in VA.
We must be neighbors because I am also in Northern VA (Fairfax County). Actually… I have lived the last couple years in Asia and am still there… but I am planning my return.
I have planted a couple small orchards in Fairfax and feel like I have learned a lot.
I see that you are already getting a lot of good advice but I will pile on a little bit. You have picked a lot of wonderful varieties for other locations.
Peaches and nectarines can work but will require a ton of care. Sweet cherries aren’t likely to work no matter how hard you try. Pears without very good fireblight resistance are doomed in northern VA. Apples require work to get pretty fruit but can obviously work given the commercial orchards in the area.
If part of your goal is to have fresh fruit for your family/kids I encourage you to think about persimmons, paw paws, jujubes, figs, blueberries, juneberries, mulberries, kiwis, blackberries, raspberries, muscadines and possibly pomegranates. (You could plant that whole list in northern VA and get pretty fruit from early summer to fall every year without even buying a sprayer.)
Making some serious scion changes and organizational changes. Here is what I now have. Three things to note:
I view this as an experiment to see what works in my area (Northern Virginia off the Potomac River), and I am planting only one of each scion listed. Totally recognize that some may not even live long enough to produce, but need to order 25 to meet the commercial order from ACN.
Row 1 (western most row) are trees I already have that are 6-8’ I got for a great deal earlier in the year and are currently potted.
I plan on doing spacing in the rows of 14 feet between trees, 9 trees in each row with 5 foot diameter woodchip beds around each tree, and 18 feet between the rows. This gives me an option to later plant a 6th row and makes mowing a lot more straightforward.
Row 1 (Western most row): 9 apples all on M.7. Scions are Zestar, Liberty, McIntosh, Red Fuji, Snowsweet, Royal Gala, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, and Fireside.
Row 2: 9 Apple scions with the majority on EMLA.7 unless noted otherwise. Went for more disease resistant varieties and cider varieties. Crown Empire (G.935), Enterprise, Nova Mac, Arkansas Black, Franklin Cider Apple (Bud 118), Goldrush, Dabinett (M.111), Red Gravebsein, Winesap. If I had one more space,
Row 3: Empty for future expansion.
Row 4: 5 peaches and 4 Nectarine. Rootstocks are Bailey and Lovell, with one peach on K-86. Tried to get some of the better scions for bacterial spot. Peaches are Blazing Star, Glengo, Earlystar, Encore, and FFury® PF 8 Ball™ PP#18534. Nectarines are Flavortop, Fantasia, Eastern Glo, Nectafest.
Row 5: Cherries split between Gisela-12, Mazzard, and Mahaleb (just one). Stardust, Kristin, Ulster, Black Pearl, Rainer, Black Tartarian, leaving three future spots for more cherries or plums (already have three in my yard).
Row 6 (eastern most row): Pears and Apricots. Pears on OHxF87, OHxF97, and OHxF333. Apricots on K-86 and Myrobalan. Tried to get more disease resistant pears with scions of Potomac, Magness, Kiefer, Sunrise, Harrow Sweet. Apricot scions are Goldrich, Harcot, Blenheim. Leaves one spot open in the row for another apricot or pear.
Thank you for the advice. I used to actually live in Fairfax (Clifton) before moving. I already have blackberries, figs, blueberries, strawberries, and am adding raspberries to our garden. This is my graduation exercise!
I really need to try muscadines, juneberries, jujubes, and paw paws to see if I should pursue them! Not the biggest fan of Persimmons or mulberries. Also, I did not know I could grow kiwis or possibly pomegranates. That I need to investigate given my family loves both.
Paw paws would grow wonderfully if you are along the Potomac. There are tons of them there already.
Jujubes are a fall fruit so you might be able to find them at a grocery store that sells Asian food, something like H Mart.
The biggest issue with pomegrantes is cold. If you are farther west than Fairfax poms might not be a good option for you.
There are smooth and fuzzy kiwis that will grow in our area. I have only grown the smooth type. This variety originated in DC:
h**ps://raintreenursery.com/products/dumbarton-oaks-hardy-f-kiwi-gal-pot
(replace * with t, for some reason I can’t post links now)
year one in very early spring, I would install irrigation, plant rootstocks and install protection from deer (fencing) and rabbits (trunk guards).
Year two early spring I would topwork (graft in place) the planted rootstocks with varieties that thrive in zone 7 which is my zone. Any rootstocks that didn’t make it, i would benchgraft and plant. Also I would develop a spray schedule.
I have went from Mini-Orchard to Mega (test) Orchard here in WV.
I figure that while i can, and the prices of things even though they are high… are probably at the lowest I will see going forward. Most of my trees have been cheaper than a months worth of my favorite club apples.
Things im going to attempt to fruit and some have fruited:
Asian Pears- almost all of them.
Euro Pears- over a dozen or so
Euro Plums- a half dozen of them.
Asian Plums- most all of them.
Hybrid Plumcots etc- all of them
Sweet Cherries- just about all of them
Tart Cherries- just about all of them.
Peaches- a couple of dozen of them especially all of the red fleshed ones and the high acid ones… a few whites etc.
Nectarines- just about all of them that i want probably over a dozen.
Apples- a couple of dozen mostly russets, heirlooms and good tasting crabs and every cross of Golden Del. that i could find.
Hybrid Persimmons/Improved - just about all that Cliff could come up with for me plus all of the most popular ones.
Mulbs/Figs/Bluebs/Rasps and Blackberries and Strawberries all seem to do well here for the most part.
No doubt I will lose some trees, remove some that i dont like.
I will have every challenge that there is im sure.
In the end its my hobby and i enjoy it. If i end up with 10, 20 or 50 fruit trees that i really cant do without in the next 5 years or so thats ok too.
Cheaper than a therapist or a two week vacation for me
I have no advice to give… except do what you want to do and what makes you happy. If you feel like its work…then grow less things. If you feel like its fun and it makes you happy…then grow more things.
Welcome. It’s great to see so many fellow Virginians in this thread. I’m south west of you in Brownsburg in zone 6b (rezoned as 7a but I’m not buying it)
My layout is surprisingly similar to yours. Around 55 trees in four long rows. Mixture of rootstocks but primarily MM111. Apples, euro pears, Asian pears, nectarines, peaches, plums. Gave up on cherries long ago.
In lieu of more trees, I’ve grafted multiple varieties on apples and pears with good success. I do spray about once a month and finally got a rolling battery powered sprayer after my back screamed for help.
My trees have been added over 10 years in a triole fashion originally like miracle farms in Canada. More recently, that pattern has given way to a more random approach. I live in somewhat of a microclimate and I’m always fighting late frosts. I have used misting sprays when temps plunge and it would be more helpful if I had planted in blocks not long rows. That way, I could use dedicated sprinklers for trees sections and not covering the entire orchard every time. Your plan allows for sufficient trees to pollinate without having to line up pollination dates. I have found good overlap is sufficient. Then again, there are certainly advantages as well.
I maintain my MM111 with late summer and winter pruning but have found that a modified central leader gives me a much calmer tree that I’m not always fighting. See Skillcult on you tube for more info
. I love pruning too and I tend to always overprune. Some of my MM111 have taken almost ten years to bear and that can be frustrating. Given your possible issues with soil, however, a great anchored tree is a good thing. A mixture of rootstocks can ease the wait for fruit as my Bud9 have sometimes fruited 2 years after planting.
My late frost struggles have challenged my production of peaches, plums, and European pears, but my production of Asian pears has been super. If I did not spray, I would not have much fruit except for some bulletproof varieties. I do use kaolin clay sprays also which have been very helpful in cutting down on my spray schedule.
Fireblight has reared it’s ugly head and I’ve found streptomycin sprays at bloom to all but eliminate the same.
I speak like I know what I’m doing and that may never be the case. I have attended the school of hard knocks where I seem to repeat grades constantly. If it were not for the joy the orchard brings me, I would have probably given up long ago. I absolutely love being in my trees as crazy as that sounds.
We should all get together once a year and alternate our visits in Virginia. Orchards of all types and stages are a joy to visit for us fruity types. What fun that would be!
Best of luck to you. Expect mistakes and successes every year to be the norm.
It sounds like a good plan. We are also in 7A (Maryland) and planted 40 semi-dwarf fruit trees about 8-10 years ago. Every year I “patrol my troops” as my wife calls it. Peaches produced first (after about 4 years) and are doing well. Apples are the oldest (8-10 years) and produce about a dozen apples before dropping to the ground. I planted three CRAB APPLES about 3 years ago in order to attract bees. I think crab apples are a good idea. Last year we added three oriental PERSIMMONS (make sure the hole is deep…about 30 inches…since they have a central tap root) and we had half a dozen persimmons that I gave to my son and grandson. The only thing I regret this year is that spraying. Last year, I sprayed every 2-3 weeks for about 8 weeks and was rewarded with more than a thousand peaches. This year my wife told me not to spray …and we had only a handful of peaches. In 2025, I plan to spray all the fruit trees. I am glad that I planted the persimmons because there was immediate fruit the same year. It is difficult waiting ten years.
If you really want cherries consider the bush cherries from the University of Saskatchewan. Juliet produces cherries that are as sweet as a sweet cherry but are still tart at the same time. They are sweet enough to eat fresh but also work in pies, preserves, etc. They also have the advantage of growing more like a large bush than a tree which makes them easier to care for, pick, etc.
Juliet is susceptible to cherry leaf spot and will require some spraying to keep the leaves from all falling off but you can get pretty fruit from them.
I took a look at your revised list and I have some recommendations.
First I think if I give you a general overview of diseases, insects and spraying my advice will make more sense. Some things I have left out and others I have simplified but when you’re learning all this stuff it can be confusing and a bit overwhelming. I will try to minimize that as much as I can.
Diseases- usually you spray a fungicide but you may spray something else
Insects- you can bag the fruit, spray Surround (a clay), or spray an insecticide
Spray schedule
When the trees leaf out in the Spring- spray a fungicide
At petal fall- spray a mixture of fungicide and insecticide
Two weeks after petal fall- spray a mixture of fungicide and insecticide
Above is a basic spray schedule. For stone fruits it is common to add the two sprays below.
One month before harvest- spray a fungicide
Two weeks before harvest- spray a fungicide
These two later sprays will help control brown rot which is probably your most important enemy for stone fruit.
Okay right away you see you will be spraying the trees 3-5 times a year depending on the weather. In some years rain and high winds will reduce the number of sprays you can do. Other years, when drought is present you may be able to reduce the number of sprays because brown rot is less of a threat in drought years.
For apples you may be able reduce the number of sprays to zero if you bag the fruit and you pick apples that are highly resistant to the local diseases. Or reduce the number of sprays to 1 or 2 with just highly resistant apples trees.
Here is the tricky part. Most apples with some exceptions don’t have wide range disease resistance so you need to know in advance what are the strongest disease threats before you plant anything. This creates a catch 22 problem. In the beginning when you first plant trees you don’t know what the local diseases are. You have to make educated guesses and hope for the best. You can increase your chances of success by planting at least some apples trees that have wide range disease resistance.
For stone fruits there is very little resistance to brown rot. In cherries not only is there very little resistance to brown rot, cherries crack badly in heavy rainfall which makes the brown rot problem worse. So brown rot resistance and cracking resistance are very useful traits to have if you can get them.
So now for some recommendations-
Apples
Enterprise and Goldrush are very good. Arkansas Black and Winesap are good. Red Gravenstein is a poor choice. The others I am not familiar with. Others that would be good choices- William’s Pride, Pristine, Ashmead’s Kernel, Pitmaston Pineapple, and Winecrisp.
Scott’s bullet proof list is worth looking at too. It’s filled with apples resistant to Summer rots and fireblight. Scott is in Maryland and his experiences should be readily translatable to your local conditions.
Peaches
I would suggest trying to add Glohaven and Elberta. Both have some resistance to brown rot. Glohaven is also resistant to bacterial spot, produces big peaches, and in years that a late frost wipes out your crop you will usually still get some peaches.
Sweet cherries
Black Pearl and Black Tartarian are good choices. The rest are poor choices. I would strongly recommend Black Gold and White Gold. All of pearl series (Black Pearl, Burgundy Pearl), etc. are good. Emperor Francis is good and so is Black York. I would get trees on Krymsk 5,6,7 or Gisela 5, 12 if you can. Gisela 6 or mazzard if you can’t.
For more sweet cherry info look at the Eastern cherry thread.
Also consider planting a tart cherry or two. They are resistant to brown rot and if fully ripe they are sweet/tart and can be eaten fresh.
I have no experience with Pears and Apricots.
Also like most forum members I am pretty frugal. So I commend your goal of buying all your trees from one vendor and saving money. But I have been too frugal (too cheap) sometimes and it’s back fired on me. It’s important to get the right trees on the right rootstocks and sometimes that means buying from more vendors or paying more or both.
I would look at Mehrabyan Nursery, Grandpa’s Orchard, Cummin’s Nursery and Heritage Farm and Fruit Trees. Yes, you can always replant or graft trees over but it usually takes years to figure out the tree isn’t suitable for your conditions. You never get that time back and you don’t save money. The initial tree purchase price is a very small part of the cost of an orchard and it is a one time cost if you pick good trees. If you want to experiment plant a mix of trees. A good mix of sure things, moderate risk and high risk trees. Many of us on the forum learned thru hard experiences and a bit of heart breaking failures. You don’t have to.
I would avoid the idea of a few year experiment. I would recommend doing as much research as possible prior to planting. You might have a lot of money to throw at this, but when it comes to planting orchards there is no more valuable commodity than time. When you make mistakes and decide to replant it can cost you many years. I let the big universities do the trials and experiments and learn from them. There is also a great wealth of knowledge here. Speak to other local orchards, extension services and everyone here to learn what might work best for you. Take soil samples and call Cummins nursery for rootstock recommendations. Spending 2 months on research can save you 8-10 years.
This is my recommendation unless over course your primary goal is experimentation.
This is nothing short of Amazing! Literally printing this out.
With respect to apple disease pressure, there are cedars everywhere in my neighbor. The closest cedars to the orchard are probably 75-80 yards away. That is why my second row emphasized cedar apple rust.
Did you not recommend the Red Gravenstein due to susceptibility to both scab and fire blight? I thought it was resistant to CAR at least.
I will explain why I thought Gravenstein is a poor choice. I will take you thru how I evaluate an apple I am not familiar with. This will help you pick out apples on your own.
First, I usually look at the Purdue Apple disease resistance chart and see what the apple’s resistance is to the four major apple diseases fireblight, CAR, scab, and powder mildew. Unfortunately, the chart doesn’t include Summer rots. Also it doesn’t list uncommon apples.
From the chart you can see Gravenstein is susceptible to fireblight. I think in your area that is going to be a major problem. But lets look at another reference which has a lot of info on apple cultivars- Pomiferous.
Here is the link.
It says "Prone to canker, scab, rust and very much so to mildew. Moderately susceptible to fireblight. "
So it also says it is susceptible to fireblight. The entry for Gravenstein also has lots of other good info that helps you decide if it is an apple you want to grow.
Here is an additional good apple reference- Orange Pippin.
We can look at the description, identification, and reviews tabs. There is a bunch of information here. On the identification tab at the bottom it says Gravenstein is highly susceptible to fireblight. In the description tab it has more info about disease susceptibility and mentions the climates it does well and poorly in.
Finally we can search the growing fruit forum for “Gravenstein” to see if any one has direct experience growing it on the forum if we want more info.
Could you grow Gravenstein? Yes but the fireblight resistance isn’t good. I would plant something else as I would expect fireblight to be a problem in your area and it kills trees.
CAR can be a problem but the petal fall and the two weeks later sprays will take care of CAR in most cases although in the deep South it can defoliate trees prematurely and really weaken the tree. Goldrush is susceptible to CAR but with sprays I don’t really have a problem with it in my home orchard. I think you also would be successful with Goldrush but I think you should see for yourself using the references mentioned above.
I should also mention that Red Gravenstein is a bud mutation of regular Gravenstein and the two are pretty much the same except for color.
