I have both - some trees with 20+ varieties. But I like the single trees especially for sharing scion wood. Due to latent viruses in apples, I don’t multigraft them very often and, if I do, I don’t share wood from those trees. One of my good friends, a 90+ year old Master Gardener, has a 100 variety apple tree. A few years ago introduced a variety with latent apple moasic virus. Now his tree is in decline!
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Point well made.
(But, I’ll throw this in the mix…passing a simple test and doing some community service hours only gets a person a “master grdener” certificate, it does NOT make most of them masters at gardening.)
(I’ve supervised a couple…I know first hand.)
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Every year at our county fair I laugh at the plants that are misidentified by “master gardeners”. They consistently label japanese bush honeysuckle as “wild cherry”…lol
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I sorta like 15 feet. I like 20 better, but 25 more. I planted on 20’s here, Scott.
My idea of an entire orchard, whether pears or persimmons or apples, or cherries or peaches is to grow a single leader and if I want to keep it in check I like wild and cool shaped trees like this pear:
I’d get it (no question about it) up above 5-6 feet to begin branching, however. But this is a strong, vertical, shape. Open center trees will not live the endurance race in my opinion.
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I agree that many, if not most, of the “Master Gardeners” are not masters of gardening, but this guy is and has taught me a lot.
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My plan is to try as many varieties as I can on 2 to 3 root stock, and keep the ones that do the very best in my climate, what I’d remove will be replaced with more of what I like most in our climate, I have two pear root stock in full all day sun, in the ground. I might add another one some day. Luckily with this forum and with other resources like Germplasm data, and so on I have been able to narrow down what is worth trying for me.
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15’ spacing sounds reasonable to me, I planted my pears last spring with 10’ in the row and 15’ between rows. I planted Magness on Quince, Seckel on OHxF87 and will add Warren on OHxF333 next spring. I plan on grafting 2-3 additional varieties on the Seckel, as Seckel does not store very well and is too much work to peel before eating (I don’t like pear skin). I am considering varieties that you recommended Scott; Fondant dML, Dana Hovey and Urbaniste. I like pears in Oct-Dec, when I am done with nectarines and pluots, otherwise I will eat 10 nectarines/pluots before I even consider a single pear.
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15’ - 20’ Spacing is my idea of perfect for most pears. Consider the scions if it’s seckle 7’ is plenty or if it’s ayers 15’ is close. Asian pears like drippin honey 10’ is fine in my opinion.
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I measured my area more carefully, it looks like the pears will have around 17’ each so right in your window Clark. I am only going to put in two pear trees, and plan on adding something like one additional variety to each stock – it is too much work dealing with ripening a whole bunch of different pears properly. I can control the size with pruning, I already have been doing a much more extreme version of that for years (on full-size pear rootstock).
I have heard that Seckel is smaller, but that is a pretty big difference, @clarkinks! I was planning on putting the Urbaniste on the Seckel root, sounds like I should put it on the north side so it doesn’t take over.
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I have an unknown pear I was sent in a trade that is 8’ tall 3’ wide after 10 years on callery. All of its surrounding pears are now 25’ tall x 10’ wide. This is clay soil so it is naturally somewhat dwarfing. Pears are like people they come in all shapes and sizes. Some like Douglas, Clara frijs , Kieffer, improved Kieffer, ayers, Maxine, Leona to name a few reach for the sky.
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In my experience that would be wise for you to do long term. Seckle grows at half the rate of my other pears around it. In my case it didn’t matter I had a callery come up in the garden fence row so I grafted it to seckle. It’s had the best of everything but is still a smaller more petite tree in general just like the fruit it produces. Honeysweet , harvest queen and others are similar. 5 years ago I grafted a Korean Giant to a tree of both and within a year it took over the tree both in height and in width. Very much regretted my poor decision because it’s all I can do to keep the Korean Giant trimmed enough to let them live. As you know a dominant tree trys to shade out it’s competition.
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Lots of new blossoms this year let’s see if we get fruit
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Looking good the fruitlets are setting now.
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I have 3 Duchess, 2 Ayers, and 2 Douglas grafts which look to have taken in OHxF97. If they all make it through the summer I’ll likely graft over the duplicates to other tough varieties. I’m about 2.5 hrs to your west, Clark, so I’ve really relied on your recommendations.
I also frame worked a couple wild callery over to what I suspect is Kieffer just for fun and practice.
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Good fruit set on pears for a change this year. Got lots of Ayers, Large Korean, Chojuro, Peggy and some for the first time on Meigetsu, Raja, Shinko and Copper Creek. Seuri, on a dwarfing stock and in what must be a poor location (because its neighbors are a little puny, too), has refused to bloom again, though it finally appears to be getting up some vigor.
I planted a Drippin’ Honey and Gourmet this spring; Turnbull last fall. Have been trying some pear grafts. Tennosui’s a success and I think Pai Li may have taken, too. Getting ready to attempt Ya Li, Seckel and Art’s Bosc.
I’ve kind of gone pear crazy lately. I blame you, Clark! 
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Pears are way undervalued guys! My pear growing methods have been anything but traditional but they work at this location. The deer don’t know what to do when they see huge pear trees they can’t climb. Fireblight cannot kill resistant varities. Raccoons cannot eat that many pears! As we grow more types and learn more the next generations of pear growers will be 100x as knowledgeable as us guys. You guys might wind up growing 50+ varities and that’s not an option anyone could afford a few years ago. The wood wasn’t available when I started grafting. Now you can easily find 50 new varities to graft a year for under $4 a scion. Imagine if we start seeing hundreds of varities available and we actually know something about them! Some of these pears I grow I don’t know a single thing besides that they exist when I start growing them. I’m really impressed with everything you guys are growing! It’s very nice to have good quality fruit! @JVD that’s close enough these varities will work good for you!
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I’m early in my pear journey. I have an old tree at my home of unknown variety and I have planted Warren, El Dorado, and Harrow Sweet, all 3 to 1 hole in my orchard. This year I grafted 1 new variety to each of those 3; Comice, Paragon, and Dana Hovey. Really excited for them to get to a good bearing size.
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Do you get plenty of chill hours in Napa? @Richard may have some good pointers as he has very good luck with hood pears in California. I’m glad your choosing pears for that space !
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I’m also getting a great set, this is the first time in 20 years on my main pear planting where everything is blooming. Hopefully I can keep the crows off the pears this year so I can get some fruit.
I removed several more pears this winter but also am adding a new pear planting with standard-sized trees of my favorites. It includes Seckel, Dana Hovey, Fondante des Moulins-Lille, and Docteur Desportes. Along with those I also have Magness and Urbaniste which I made more room for. That is plenty of pear varieties for me!
There are still a few I am waiting to see how they will work out, but only a couple are left in that category now.
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That’s a good pear orchard setup! Magness let’s me down on production here but the quality is good. Both Magness and Warren are shy on the numbers but not shy on quality. I’m glad to hear your getting heavy blooming as well it sounds like it will be a big year!
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