Every year in February I add NPK to the snow, I also scatter the ashes. They need nutrients right at the beginning after the snow has melted, and it seems that fertilizing it in the snow has worked for me. When I have manure, in the fall. I usually no longer fertilize during the growing season.
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Thank you for the suggestions. I am zone 6A (Pittsburgh area) so your climate should be similar.
edit: Additionally, my order of starts from Floramaxx should be arriving today. I will post an update when it arrives!
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Honeyberries probably the best.
But good to have options. Even blueberries will grow on north of a building…but the crop will be very light.
The viburnum trilobum (cranberry bush) is native from Canada to Florida. The berries make great jelly/jam, but may be on the sour side if you know what I mean. Not related to cranberries. (They are related to the viburnum opulus (snowball bush) from Europe, though.)
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I will focus on a bunch of honeyberries then. I just want that area to be productive along with the shade loving natives as pollinators later in the season. Right now there are boxwoods and some ground spreading things I’m going to get rid of. I never liked the cat urine smell of the boxwoods, even if they can handle the shade.
It’s not just honeyberries that benefit from late winter fertilization (you could also do this early winter once dormant). Stone fruit and other fruit trees seem to do better for me if I hit them late fall rather than early spring.
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Gogi berries, only have 1 plant for about 6 years. Don’t have the heart to tear it out, but everyone is right, they taste horrible. Love honey berries.
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Is there a chill hour rating for honeyberries? How far south are we growing these things?
There’s a blueberry ‘orchard’ near Rocky Top, TN…I’ve not been to it, but have visited the owner in Knoxville about 13 years ago. Bought my first honeyberry plants there.
Besides blueberries, they grow a few honeyberries.
I’ve not followed up with those people in awhile.
Probably North Georgia and Greenville SC…farther south I don’t know…hope somebody can give you a better answer.
Those sound like good choices. Beauty and Beast gave me some delicious fruit in 2020 in Baltimore County. But they do get ugly in the second half of Summer as others have mentioned.
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My order from Floramaxx arrived! It looks like it arrived well packed and in good shape. For 9 plants started from tissue culture I paid about 7. 23 per plant including shipping, exchange rate fee to CAD, and phytosanitary certification. Doubling my order would likely get you closer to $5/plant. If you are OK with starting small this seems like a great option for Aurora, Beauty, Beast, and Blizzard starts. They have other options as well.
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I wanted to try service berries on my property but my cedars are carriers of Cedar Apple Rust. I see the anemone like Galls every spring.
@disc4tw Here in a semi arid zone 4 saskatoons(a bush type of serviceberry) are native to the coulees.(the rolling slopes down to the river) The saskatoons grow only on slopes facing north or north east. This is the only aspect where there is enough moisture to sustain the saskatoons. I would think that placing saskatoons on the north side of your house in a warmer climate would work well. Haskap leaves always look horrible later in the season. Just ignore them, they always come back green next spring.
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I don’t know about chilling hours but they have been trialed for commercial production at the wye research center in Queenstown MD zone 7b. I asked the Extension Specialist for Commercial Horticulture in charge of the program and he said they do fruit each year but performance and growth are substandard (18 inches growth since 2016). he wasn’t aware of what varieties he was growing.
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Thank you for letting me know! I will definitely be making a forest of haskaps on my north face after that information.
edit: I’ll check out Saskatoons too!
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from the foundation out to 10ft gets 0 direct sunlight all day. i guess the suns lower on the horizon here. lots of moss.my green house is 15ft. out and gets full sun all day. only thing its good for is rooting cuttings and hardening off plants.
My house is not facing true south. Maybe 5-10 degrees east. So around three o’clock they get sun. In April to June the sun is high enough to hit them earlier. Zero sun there this time of year.
Man it’s so cold here, I can’t Imagine there. Well I have been in the U.P. Stay warm!
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not bad here. supposed to get to 30f by fri. still one of the warmest winters in a long time.
currants are probably the most shade tolerant fruit of those you listed, haskap might be second but they will fruit significantly less than if they are given full sun…
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That might not be the case in zone 6 or 7…
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I can’t remember if this is the thread (or not) where we were talking about grafting honeyberry scion to honeysuckle (and I can’t re-read +700 posts). Did anyone ever try this? If so, what was the outcome?