i think the original owners that developed this property filled it in with the absolute worse rocky heavy clay soil they could find. it has good nutrients but is a nightmare to plant in it. if its not in a raised bed or mound chances are ill lose it over time as theres no drainage. bush fruits do well in ground though. first time i tried to make a garden in a 20’ by 40’ area., i got one pass done and gave up i on it and planted raspberries instead. fist sized rocks where hell on me and the tiller. no fun!
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Yup, that doesn’t sound like fun to me either.
I have quite a range of soils on this chunk of acreage. All the way from sand to peat bog and everything in between. I got lucky with our garden plot. Very few rocks and some of the richest silt loam on the place. It can get water logged in high rainfall years like last year however.
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I’m jealous! I’ve had to buy all the soil i have used to plant in. gets pretty expensive. can’t buy good loam around here. only bagged soil.
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Thanks for the tip, I had never heard of using Mountain Ash as a rootstock! I know they’re cold hardy and tolerant of pretty bad soil, and we certainly have those in abundance. I’m definitely interested in what varieties will survive on/be compatible with Mountain Ash as rootstock, and what kind of characteristics it provides, mostly vigor and disease resistance. Please keep me updated, I have a couple Mountain Ash around I could use as test trees, and should have some scions for Summercrisp, Kieffer, Luscious, and Bartlett I can try out.
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-38 is pretty severe, I don’t think we’ve gone below -22 that I can remember in the last 16 winters. I’m familiar with Ure, Golden Spice, and Early Gold as varieties of P. Ussuriensis, and may be hardy down to Zone 2(!). I’ll check out the others, thanks for the tip!
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Parker is a good pear but might very well get fire blight eventually. They grow them in some places of North Dakota. Bismark ND is in a similar USDA zone to you…not that those are very accurate.
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I haven’t tried anything rated for a Zone 5 minimum yet; I was thinking the Bartlett rootstock may have been a stretch when I planted them, but we’ve had so few losses so far I’m gaining some confidence. However, they’re been packed in over four feet of snow the last few winters, and we received such a heavy blanket of snow in early and mid-November the last couple years that we had either no or very little frost in the ground. The interwebs aren’t consistent on P. Betulifolia, some say Zone 5 and some say colder, and I’m trying some seedlings this year. Probably my gamble will be the cold-hardiest Asian pears I can find on either that or P. Ussuriensis rootstock.
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if you ever want some mountain ash seedings to try grafting to, i have probably a doz. volunteers that come up in my yard every summer. my property is surrounded on 2 sides by 30ft. mountain ashes so they seed everywhere. id think pear grown on mtn. ash would fruit sooner as well. look up shipova pear. its a cross of pear and mtn. ash that was bred in Russia. i have one from cricket hill thats grafted on aronia rootstock. its a natural dwarf that only grows to 6ft. this summer will be its second year in. supposed to fruit in its 3rd. year. its z3 hardy.
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What do you think, is pear compatible with every type of sorbus? Because we have quite a lot of Mehlbeeren (sorbus aria) on our property and they absolutely can’t be killed…
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not sure. I’ve heard of it working with white beam and another bush that grows in russia and canada. forget the name. maybe someone else will chime in on this.
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Thank you. If I have time maybe I’ll experiment next winter…
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you must have mountain ash in Switzerland?
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Yes we do. But not very many on our property whereas sorbus aria grows everywhere.
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Here’s what I have growing in Z4 in the Southern Adirondacks in New York: Ayers; Bartlett; Beurre Bosc; Clapps; Colette; German A; Japanese Golden Russet; Kieffer; Luscious; Moonglow; Nijiseiki (aka 20th Century); Nova; Patten; Spartlett; Summer Blood; Summer Crisp; Winter Nellis. Rootstocks I have them on are: Quince; OHxF333; OHxF87; OHxF97; and Amelanchier canandensis (aka Shadblow Serviceberry). Bosc is questionable here, I’ll probably graft that tree over. The Bosc, Clapps and Colette are all 10 years old on standard root stock (I’m guessing OHxF97). The Clapps and Bosc have yet to bloom and the Colette has been blooming for 2 years, but no fruit yet (it set fruit last year but I lost it to a fireblight strike). Luscious is doing well on Serviceberry rootstock, but no blooms yet, about 4 years old. Everything else is in a nursery bed, too young to bloom yet, but surviving winters well. I should note we haven’t really had “4a” temps since the trees in the nursery bed were grafted and set out (this is their 3rd season).
Check out the website for Saint Lawrence Nursery, he grows only cold hardy varieties and it gives some good suggestions for cold hardy pear.
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i have several trees from them. one is a apple from my hometown of ft. kent , me called garfield king yellow transparent. i picked off that original tree when i was a kid. never thought someone would propagate and sell it. eating the apples will bring back fond memories.
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I’ve heard both Parker and Patten are good cold-hardy pears, I’ll try them out.
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If you don’t mind, I’ll take you up on those Mountain Ash volunteers! This afternoon I went out to my backyard Mountain Ash and collected desiccated, frozen orange berries I found in the lawn, and am soaking them in a shaker to separate the seeds. The seeds’ parent is a survivor; it’s a tree that just somehow grew up over the years in my backyard, never got mowed, and is now about 6" diameter at the base of the trunk, and 15’ in height. It’ll be a great test bed for those scions in a few weeks…
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Thanks, you’ve got quite a collection! I’m originally from Schenectady and my mother is from Northville, not too far east of you. We’ve had some mild winters since I put in my rootstock and planted the scion donors, along with abundant, eatly snow that insulated the ground, so I’m concerned about a good ol’ fashioned Maine winter. What are you looking at for fireblight damage? What has the most, if any, dieback from cold damage? I’d be interested to see if your Bosc and Nijiseiki bear fruit. I do enjoy a Bosc pear.
they usually come up in may. ill dig them and pot them for you.
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Too funny, my Dad grew up in Latham, and I used to off-road my Jeep on Warner Hill near Northville ! My Beurre Bosc by far has seen the most winter die back, but it’s also one of my older trees that has actually seen a winter with temps of -25f or lower. Fireblight hasn’t been an issue, last year was my first strike and it was solely on my Colette, the Clapps and Bosc near it were not affected. I’m pretty sure the Colette was infected at bloom. I had to prune off 2 branches. Colette makes me nervous because it’s a re-bloomer and I’ve seen a second round of blooms in July. In fact, it’s first bloom ever was in July. If I do find it to be a fireblight magnet, I’ll graft the tree over. I’m hoping to start planting trees from the nursery bed out in the orchard this year, either this spring or this fall, depending on if I decide to cover-crop the field first.