Joanie COoper, head of the TOC and HOS, is a saint. Sorry to get too theological on you guys, but at least fruit-wise, she is.
John S
PDX OR
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I had great success with there scions this year. While the Botner collection is still young and everything I wanted was not yet available. What I did get all appear to have taken
Irish Spire
Brownlees russet
Carroll County Pound
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Jury is still out on my Henry Clay from TOC. I grafted it on a particularly hot day. Not sure if it will pull through…
I have at least 3 or 4 successful grafts from each of the Limbertwig scions TOC sent. I’ll be using them next year for some more hard to find varieties. A Hillside Limbertwig pushing out some nice growth.
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Do you know how many LT varieties TOC has? I’ve never heard of Hillside LT.
At some point are you going to cut that to a single leader?
They have 26 varieties listed although some may be the same. They have Victoria Sweet, Sweet and Victoria listed which may be the same apple.
Yes, I’ll be going through the nursery in a few weeks and selecting central leaders on my grafts.
That “Hillside” doesn’t show up in Rev. Morton’s old catalog or on Dan Bussey’s (Seed Savers Exch) list of 98 Limbertwigs. I wonder where it came from?
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Hey Steve,
They also have the Alberta, Hanging Dog, Rusty Coat, Seedling and Nanthailia Red. Does Bussey have any of them on his list?
Yes, they are all on Bussey’s list. Hillside is a brand new one that had not cropped up in any of my research, unless it’s an alias.
Hopefully I’ll be eating some Hillside Limbertwigs in 4 years or so and will report on what they look and taste like.
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Not sure this will all fit here. Email to me from Dan Bussey, former orchard manager at Seedsavers Exchange, Decorah, Iowa:
Hi Steve,
I have about 35 Limbertwigs in the collection here and most are from Steve Kelly and a few others that you’re probably aware of. Henry Morton in his 1986-87 catalog mentioned some of the people where he had obtained most of his Limbertwigs from. I wonder if any of those people are around? I have the 98 I mentioned, listed below and there are two that are probably synonyms of others. I haven’t compared this with Tom’s list recently to see if I missed any. I’ve been interested in the Limbertwigs for some years and have written about them in one of our publications a few years ago. Please mention the Seed Savers Exchange as a source for scionwood. Being able to find rare varieties such as these are part of our mission and I hope we can share information when it can be found. Good luck in your work and I plan to be in touch with you any chance I get if something else comes up!
1.Alberta
2.American
3.Appalachian
4.Ashford
5.Autumn
6.Bee Creek
7.Ben Lomand / Lomand
8.Black Limbertwig
9.Black Limbertwig (Tyson)
10.Black Limbertwig (Watts)
11.Black Newman / Newman
12.Brewster
13.Brushy Mountain
14.Brown
15.Cagle Mountain
16.Camp
17.Cane Creek
18.Caney Fork
19.Carolina
20.Crimson
21.Cumberland
22.Cypert
23.Eaton
24.Edgefield
25.Elberta Black
26.Evan’s
27.Fall
28.Fall Creek
29.Glade
30.Golden
31.Green /aka Large
32.Hanging Dog
33.Hard’s / Peak Fall?
34.Holder’s
35.Howard
36.Improved
37.June
38.Keep Forever
39.Kentucky
40.Kingston
41.Levering
Old-Fashioned /probably the Red
42.Limbertwig Spice
43.Little
44.Maroon
45.Miller’s Sweet
46.Morrison
47.Motlow
48.Mountain
49.Mountain Crest
50.Myer’s Green
51.Myer’s Royal
52.Nanthalia
53.North Carolina
54.Ohio
55.Oregon
56.Park Green
57.Ramsey’s Smoky Mountain
58.Red
59.Red Royal
60.Reed
61.Richard Red
62.Roane Royal
63.Rocky River
64.Rose
65.Royal
66.Ruby
67.Rusty Coat
68.Seedling
69.Sequatchie
70.Shields
71.Short (Short Mountain?)
72.Short Mountain
73.Slatton’s
74.Slemp
75.Smoky
Smoky Mountain (Red Ramsey Strain)- Likely same as Ramsey’s Smoky Mountain
76.Sour
77.Southern
78.Southland
79.Streight
80.Striped
81.Summer / aka Weeping
82.Summer Yellow
83.Sweet
84.Swiss
85.Tate
86.Tellico
87.Tracy
88.Tyson
89.Tyson Yellow
90.Van Royal
91.Victoria
92.Virginia
93.Volunteer
94.Watts
95.Weavers Red
96.White
97.Woods / American
98.Yellow
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Hey Steve
Does Seed Savers offer scion from all these varieties? Or are these ones that he has found mentioned in old catalogs?
Dan said SS has about 35 LT varieties but he didn’t say which ones - the others come only from historical records. SS now has a new orchard manager.
These Limbertwig varieties that once appeared in Rev. Henry Morton’s TN collection are missing and presumed goners:
Autumn Green Limbertwig Bee Creek Limbertwig
Cagle Mountain Limbertwig Camp Limbertwig
Cumberland Limbertwig Eaton Limbertwig
Edgefield Limbertwig Fall Creek Limbertwig
Glade Limbertwig Golden Limbertwig
Howard Limbertwig; June Limbertwig
Mountain Crest Limbertwig Morrison Limbertwig
Park Green Limbertwig Richard Red Limbertwig
Sequatchie Limbertwig Short Mountain Limbertwig
Sour Limbertwig Tate Limbertwig
Tellico Limbertwig Volunteer Limbertwig
Striped Limbertwig Tyson Limbertwig
Smoky Limbertwig (not Smokey Mtn)
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That’s a lot of losses in, what, 30 years or so? It’s a shame that more of Rev. Morton’s collection wasn’t preserved somehow after his death. If only the TOC or SeedSaver’s collection had existed then to conserve them.
Of course, if he offered all of these for sale, some could still exist out there in customer orchards, waiting to be rediscovered.
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Ron Joyner at Big Horse Creek Farm NC has searched diligently for the missing LTs for many years and says he has exhausted all leads known to him.
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