Joan Swenson: So many fruit tree choices to fill open space
| Friday, Jan 09 2009 06:27 PM
Last Updated Friday, Mar 27 2009 01:41 PM
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Sadly, just before New Year’s, we finally removed our old green Pluot that had succumbed to borer damage. Whole limbs were dead and the poor tree wept huge amounts of sap for the past couple of years. The fruit was of poor quality this year, so my husband at last stopped watering the tree and agreed that it should go.
The spot in the garden where it grew for years is empty and forlorn. Still, we have plenty of fruit trees, almost too many to keep up with watering, harvesting and pruning. We had tentatively decided to not plant anything, at least until I took a drive to White Forest Nursery to browse through the sawdust-filled bins of hundreds of bare-root trees.
I’m sure we will be picking something new to put in the back corner of the side yard — could we be tempted to plant a Donut Peach? An Elephant Heart Plum? Perhaps we will plant the Plumcot Flavorella or an Aprium such as Cot-N-Candy or Flavor Delight? (Plumcots, Pluots and Apriums are all crosses between apricots and plums, but the Aprium is created via of generations of hybridizing to produce the final variety.) My husband will argue the benefits of various apples and pears.
January is the right time to plant all sorts of bare-root plants, from roses to Japanese maples, from cherries to asparagus and from berry bushes to artichokes. The weather is prime, cool and moist, and trees or other bare-root plants put in the ground now will thrive and get established before the heat of the summer arrives.
Bare-root plants have advantages. They’re less expensive than plants in pots. You will do the first, critical pruning of the trees (with apricots, peaches, nectarines and plums, this means cutting the tree back severely, about three feet from the ground). True bare-root trees, pulled out of bins as they are at White Forest, mean you’ll get to inspect the roots, too.
Think carefully when you decide to plant bare-root fruit trees because they will need to be pruned each winter — some tree varieties more than others — and you will eventually have fruit to manage. Dwarf trees may be more to your liking than standard-sized trees, or you might be interested in trees that have been grafted to have three types of fruit on one tree. I saw a plum tree grafted with three types of plums at White Forest: Santa Rosa, Burgundy and Methley and another tree called “fruit salad” with an Elberta peach branch, a Blenheim apricot and a Santa Rosa plum.
An option is “backyard orchard culture” advocated by Dave Wilson Nursery. The commercial nursery grows the bare-root trees that we find at many local nurseries and suggests high-density planting of successively ripening fruits to make the most of your yard space. Summer pruning controls tree size. To read more about this type of planting and pruning, check what Ed Laivo and Tom Spellman of Dave Wilson Nursery say on the company Web site at davewilson.com.
You will see some landscape trees available bare-root, too, including Japanese maples and the beautiful magnolia soulangiana. Nurseries also stock other fruits and vegetables to be planted bare-root. Check out berries (strawberries, blackberries, loganberries, raspberries, currants, etc.), rhubarb, horseradish, artichokes and asparagus.
ROSE PRUNING
Interested gardeners are invited to join members of the 60+ Club for the annual pruning of the Stiern Memorial Rose Garden at Cal State Bakersfield, 9001 Stockdale Highway, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday.
Members of the Kern County Rose Society will be on hand to give guidance on the proper way to prune roses. The Stiern Garden has about 75 rose bushes to be pruned. Participants should bring pruning shears and gardening gloves. Hot beverages will be provided.
The garden is on the north side of the Dore Theatre, just off of Don Hart Drive West. For more information, call Denise Nielsen at 654-3211.
ROSE SOCIETY
The Kern County Rose Society will meet Monday at the Veterans Hall, 400 W. Norris Road. Scott Kilttich from Otto and Sons Nursery will speak on Roses for 2009. Socializing is from 6:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. The meeting starts at 7 p.m.
CLUB MEETINGS
The Bakersfield Green Thumb Garden Club will meet at 9 a.m. Jan. 17 in the Church of the Brethren, on Palm and A streets. The meeting begins at 9:30 a.m., followed by a program on organic gardening by Gisele Schoniger. Judging of the mini flower show will follow. Members and the public are invited to enter the mini flower show before 9:30 a.m. to have their plants, cut flowers and floral designs critiqued in preparation for our public flower show in April. Doors will open at 8:30 a.m.
