Planting Bare Root Trees and Shrubs. Raintree Order. 3.7.15

Whip-and-trongue graft on Pawpaw.   3.7.15

Container grown pawpaw "Mango".  3.7.15

 Thursday night, the order from Raintree Nursery arrived.  I kept it in a cool shaded location until this morning.

I am a big fan of Raintree but this time around it was a mixed bag, to say the least.  In the long run, I imagine the trees and shrubs will all grow.

The Pawpaw "Mango" was nice.  Container grown.  I read that bare root pawpaws don't easily grow, if at all.  Small starts are usually required.  So I expected small.  I was interested to see this one was a whip-and-tongue graft.  I read that pawpaws are usually chip budded.  Nice example of a good whip-and-tongue.

The roots were not wound around and around in the container.  I was gentle, which I read is important for pawpaws.  I planted it, surrounded it with a hardware cloth protector, and watered it in.

Sweet Treat Pluerry was disappointing but I think will be OK in the end.  Most of the branches were broken off near the trunk.  The remaining couple of branches are on the same side  There was evidence of growth cut off or  broken off at the trunk, so I'm not sure there are viable buds there.  So I cut off the broken branches.  Probably will tie up the top branch to vertical, and prune back once there is growth and I can see where the buds break.

The Pluerry did have an excellent root system, which is as important as a good top.  If not more so.

The apple tree was sold as a 4-variety multigraft.  It was nice this was 5 varieties.  I'm going by memory, if I recall correctly the varieties are Akane, Jonagold, Summerred, Chehalis, and Beni Shogun Fuji. Excellent root system.  It has a good chance to take off and grow.  Looks very healthy.

The bonus plants were, 3 red rugosa roses and one highbush cranberry.  The rugosa roses looked OK.  Small, but as a bonus I can't complain.   The highbush cranberry looked more like it was hacked back, than pruned. Still, once I pruned it, it looked pretty good.

I read highbush cranberries are a type of viburnum, and not really cranberries, but taste and look like them.  The rugosas should have some good rose hips for cooking, so they are also an edible plant.  Both are considered deer resistant.

Back to the Sweet Treat Pluerry, this tree is a complex interspecific hybrid, mainly plum with cherry second, and some peach and apricot.  How it turns out here will be anybody's guess.  It is not listed, which plums, which peaches, apricots, or cherries.  I hope the peach contribution does not make it susceptible to peach leaf curl.  Should not, but that is an issue with the Peach-plum hybrid, "Tri-lite".

This time around, Raintree's order was not packaged well, the newspaper wrappings were dry, so the roots were dry.  They reported they would send the shipment a few days after my first  query, then a few days after my 2nd query 2 weeks later, then it was shipped another week later; the shipping company did not give an expected date until the day it arrived.  So there was good, bad, and ugly.  Now they are planted and ready for Spring.

Pawpaw roots.  3.7.15

Planted pawpaw.  3.7.15

Sweet treet pluerry - on delivery.  3.7.15

Planted Sweet Treet.  3.7.15

Sweet Treet roots.  3.7.15

Apple tree roots.  3.7.15

Highbush cranberry on delivery.  3.7.15

Pruned Highbush Cranberry.  3.7.15