Recommendations for SW Pennsylvania

General Fruit Growing
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Greetings Everyone,

I just bought a house on a double lot in Westmoreland County, PA and am looking for recommendations for fruit trees to grow in my backyard. Anything I should definitely avoid or definitely try would be greatly appreciated. I live in CA for 25 years and used to U-Pick apricots, but maybe they don’t like our humid summers? I’m just returning from living in Australia where quince are common and would like to grow them too. And a damson plum. Anyway I’d be grateful for any tips and recommendations. Cheers, Greg

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Do you plan on spraying insecticides and/or fungicides? That would change the response to your question considerably.

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Yes. At this time I am gathering information so I can make informed choices rather than wasting money.

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Please consider having a strategy to fight deer and squirrels: fence, tree cages against deer and some other methods against squirrels. What part of Westmoreland County are you in?

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Here are some ideas for the lazy orchardist… like me. Both Asian and European pears grow pretty well with limited intervention (pruning limbs and thinning fruit mostly). Persimmons (American and Hybrid) also grow well with limited intervention, they produce pretty quickly too in my experience. Tart and bush cherries can be grown without spray, but birds often decimate the crop if not protected with netting. Pawpaw and Jujube may also fit in this category, but I have limited experience with them.

Apples have been so-so for me. If you do not get a spray or two, you may have a lot of damage from plum curculio, apple maggot, and stink bugs. I have also had late season fungal issues with a few varieties too (Goldrush and Suncrisp). My best/most consistent growers (with limited intervention) have been Sweet Sixteen and Rubinette. I am trialing some thicker-skinned, hard-fleshed, late-maturing varieties in hope that they are more bug-resistant. No results yet.

Peaches grow pretty well, but need more care than everything listed above. Rot/PC/OFM (and occasionally borers) will get to them. I got a dormant spray and one antifungal/insecticide/surround after petal-drop and I have a good amount of harvestable fruit (and a lesser amount that were rotten).

Not a tree- but I would not recommend grapes. Black rot, Japanese beetles, and Spotted Lanternflies are a pain. Mine are over my gooseberries and currants so I do not spray them… and it shows.

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So I’d definitely recommend pawpaw’s should be pretty care free minus animals.

You’d probably be too cold for Asian persimmon, but an American will do just fine and should be carefree minus animals.

I’d also recommend black currants and gooseberries. Mine have been pretty good except this year they are getting some aphids which never had before. (I recommend Whitman’s farm for gooseberry/currant plants) she only takes orders over the phone tho but she has the best plants I’ve ever gotten.

I’d also suggest a goumi and bush cherries (you might have to spray the bush cherries, if you got all the rain like I did down here in MD, I needed to spray mine for leaf spot when it rained for those 2 weeks non-stop last month)

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Also, I did grow apricots knowing that they were problematic here. They seem to frequently die for no good reason. Also, you may only get a crop every 3-5 years. If I was to do it all over again, I would probably have 4-5 apricot trees and make sure that I have duplicate varieties grafted among the trees. Often, the tree will grow back from the rootstock so you can re-graft back a scion to it.

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Berries.

Currants and gooseberries are worth a look at. Clove currant in the very least.

Serviceberries if there are no cedar nearby

Raspberries, blackberries, marionberries, tayberries, loganberries.

Check your soil pH and blueberries are an option.

Look through the posts here for goumi, goji, honeyberries and mulberries.

Quince should work, as well as kiwis.

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I am in Greensburg. Thanks for the tip on deer/squirrels. My father used to spray around his vegetable garden with a milk/egg mixture that my mother said smelled horrible but kept the deer away. I am considering fencing in the entire backyard at some point but cages are a good idea for now.

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Thank you!

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Thank you all for your suggestions! Super helpful. Cheers, Greg

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Definitely Korean Giant (aka Olympic) Asian pear! They’re huge, store well until spring and are wonderful if you can keep the birds from pecking them (only happens to us when the apple trees produce almost nothing, birds prefer the apples and softer fruit)
Amazing in central new York.
Hosui and Raja are great additions.
Hosui is a massive producer IF it survives fire blight, and unlike most Asian pears it grows a huge wide canopy eventually, that’s how it can produce 500 lbs of Asian pears.
Raja makes a good pollinator and earlier pears, ready in August, so you’re not tempted to eat your Olympic pears before they’re really ready.
Chojuro is interesting because it tastes different everywhere you plant it and every year, don’t get too many because it might not be a good surprise.
I’d plant something like 3 Olympics, 1 Raja, 1-2 Hosui, 1 Chojuro.
Frangrant pear is hard to find, but I want some.

You should try persimmons, there are many hybrid persimmons, or American varieties like Meader, and even self fruitful Bull’s Heart Persimmon I think it’s fully Japanese, but somehow cold Hardy to -13F maybe even -22F! The fruits may not ripen in colder climates and the tree will be more dwarfed, possible even 7 feet tall, in warmer areas they grow only 15 feet tall on American persimmon rootstock anyway.

Pawpaw is another 100% must!
Shenandoah is the only named variety that I can recommend.
One awesome thing about pawpaws is some varieties tast like bananas, some like mangos, some like pineapples, and many are more different or extreme than those.
Also pawpaw is the best anti-cancer fruit in the world.

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I’m in Pittsburgh and grow just about everything. Apples, pears, grapes, currants, gooseberries, and brambles are all fairly easy. Strawberries have given me trouble. They tend to rot. I have good luck with peaches, plums and plum crosses but I spray a good bit. Japanese beetles and spotted lanterflies have been a real pain this year. Apricots have been very difficult due to late frosts. I’m 8 years in and have yet to get an apricot. Cherries have been difficult due to cracking.

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Oh, and as far as spraying you should get away with nothing more than copper sulfate, that’s not toxic to you or the land, and sound take care of most of your issues, BT bacteria spray can take care of tent caterpillars easily and Japanese beetles okay, but I hear a Japanese beetle trap 500 yards away is what you want.

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Welcome to the forum Greg, and congratulations on your new place!

There are a few folks nearby, myself included.

I would recommend researching:

Persimmons (JT-02, Journey, Dar Sofiyivky, 100-46)

Pawpaws (Regulus, Freebyrd, Windstar, Ohio-1)

Mulberries (Gerardi Dwarf, Lawson Dawson)

Apples (Ashmead’s Kernal, Hawaii, Black Limbertwig)

Pears (Harrow Sweet, Clark’s Small Yellow, Seckel)

Raspberries (Double Gold, Fall Gold)

Honeyberries (Aurora, Indigo Gem)

Currants (Minaj Smyriou)

Gooseberries (Jeanne)

Figs (Florea, Bryant Dark, Trabia, Reservoir, Lyndhurst White)

Jujube (Honey Jar, Black Sea, Massandra, Autumn Beauty, Sugar Cane)

Feel free to reach out with questions.

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The ladybugs + milkweed/ native flowers have been working well this year for me. My jujubes bring in hundreds of bees and wasps to pollinate, not just honeybees. I can’t help but think many of them are helping with predation on the undesirables too. I’m sure I’ll get to a spray point but I’m not there yet! I’ll 100% be in on trialing fireblight sprays from Penn State’s testing when it’s available.

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@disc4tw How old were your jujube trees before they started to fruit? I’ve got a honey jar and a GA 866. Both flowered this year and last, but no fruit set.

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For mulberry, why would you recommend lawson dawson over other varieties?

Also do you have experience with growing Clarks small yellow pear in the area?

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Thank you!!

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My honey jar had a head start and flowered before I had a pollinator partner for it.

I would expect year 2 you’ll have fruit; You may still end up with it this year. Jujubes can be fickle for fruit set and picky about temperature, moisture, and other factors. If you don’t see lots of pollinators around the trees I’d recommend planting some mint family options (Mountain mint, Bergamot, etc) or other native support options to attract good pollinator buddies.

There are a few threads going related to jujubes that can provide much more information about pollination challenges than I can from my firsthand experience. It seems like I partially lucked into ideal conditions and varieties.

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