Fruit Tree Blooming Notes. 4.16.17

Gage Plum.  4.16.17

Stanley Plum.  4.16.17

LaCrescent Plum.  4.16.17

Hanska Plum.  4.16.17

Ember Plum.  4.16.17

Sweetheart Cherry.  4.16.17

Vandalay Cherry.  4.16.17

Ranier Cherry.  4.16.17

Hamese Asian Pear.  4.16.17

Hosui Asian Pear.  4.16.17

Maxie Asian Pear.  Front white flower is graft of unknown Asian Pear.  4.16.17

Multigraft Asian Pear, Branches Tied Down for Better Bearing.  4.16.17

Shinseiki Asian Pear.  4.16.17

More documentation of fruit tree blooming, for pollination matching.

By now, the earliest have dropped almost all of their petals, and can be considered done blooming.  Those are:
Ornamental Plum Crimson Pointe.
Hollywood Plum.
Sweet Treat Pluerry.
Nadia Plum Cherry Hybrid.

Methley Plum looks done or nearly so.

At peak or slightly past peak:
All of the hybrid Asian/American species plums.  These include Toka, Hanska, Ember, Lacrescent.
The unknown Asian plum is also past peak.
Shiro is past peak.

At peak bloom:
Stanley European plum
Green Gage (European) plum.
Vandalay Sweet Cherry.
Sweetheart Sweet Cherry.
Ranier Sweet Cherry.
Asian Pears including Hamese, Shinseiki, Hosui, Mishirasu, and unknown that might be Shinseiki but appears slightly different.
Maxie Hybrid pear is not quite to peak.
I have a graft of Rescue pear on the Maxie tree, which is at peak, but the original Rescue pear has barely begun blooming.

Apples are not blooming yet, but Gravenstein will be the first, with the first pink flowers now almost open.  It looks like Liberty and Pristine will be close behind, and maybe Jonared.  I don't know which of those I'm anticipating more.

Pawpaws have swelling buds, but I think it will still be a month or so.

Among the peaches, Charlotte is almost done blooming.  Same for Mary Jane.  Q-1-8 is at peak bloom.

The bottom 3 photos are my main orchard, although I have about as many other trees spread around the 2 acres in various groups.  It's nice seeing so many trees blooming, and thinking about watching the potential fruits develop.

a month.

Tulips. 4.16.17

Container Grown Tulips Second Bloom Season.  4.16.17

 These containers contain tulip bulbs, planted deep, and daylilies planted more shallowly.  Last year, deer ate the tulips.  So far this year they have missed them.  So we get to enjoy the tulips.

Container Grown Tulips Second Bloom Season.  4.16.17

Graft Progress Report. New Grafts and Some Old Ones. 4.16.17

European Plum Yakima, Whip/Tongue. One Month.  4.16.27

Here are some of my grafts from late winter and from years before.  There are too many to picture them all.

The European pears here are on what was a new bare-root multigraft.  That may not give them the best start, but at least the buds remain viable after one month and are swelling.  Yellow Egg already had swelling buds, which may be why the new growths appear damaged.  It's wait and see to see if they grow.

European Plum Yellow Egg, Whip/Tongue. One Month.  4.16.27

Asian Pear Chojuro One Month.  4.16.17

 I think Asian and European pears are really easy  The grafts here are added to a tree of the Asian x European pear hybrid, "Maxie".  All but the Chojuro are from my own trees.  The Chojuro was from Home Orchard Society scion exchange last month.  The wrapping is different because I experimented with melted candle wax.  I think plastic strips or parafilm are probably easier to work with but they are all OK for the graft.

The Nijiseiki was from last year and is on a Hosui Asian pear.  It took and grew nicely.

The older grafts are examples of how they look after a few years.  With my plum and apple grafts, most of the graft sites are no longer easy to identify.  They merged together almost seamlessly.

Asian Pear Hosui.  Two Month.  4.16.17

Asian Pear Hamese.  Two Month.  4.16.17

Asian Pear Nijiseiki.  One Year.  4.16.17

 Chocolate persimmon grew about 3 inches last year.  Some species grow rapidly and long, and others take their time.  This year, I suspect it will grow the same as the stock tree, a Saijo persimmon.

Asian Pear Shinseiki.  Cleft Graft.  4 years.  4.16.17

The ginkgo grafts barely grew last year when I grafted them, but the buds remained healthy looking.  The understock did grow new branches.  This winter, I pruned off those new branches.  The first one has bud damage - slugs?  rabbits? voles? but the second one is looking OK.  These are as exciting as any, because they mean that I can keep the ginkgo tree, in a sense, that I grew from seeds that my Dad collected almost 20 years ago.  That tree is around 25 feet tall, so obviously I can't transplant it.  

Unknown European Pear on Asian Pear.  4 Years.  Whip/Tongue.  4.16.17

Chocolate Persimmon.  Whip Tongue.  One Year.  4.16.17

Male Ginkgo on Ginkgo Seedling.  One Year.  4.16.17

Male Ginkgo on Ginkgo Seedling.  One Year.  4.16.17

Dandelion Greens. 4.12.17

Good time for dandelion greens.  High in calcium, iron, minerals, and multiple vitamins.  I save the biggest plants for my salad raised bed.  Excellent, hardy, very early perennial vegetable.  Dandelions have been culinary and herbal stables for centuries in many countries.  It's too bad they are not better accepted here.  We like them in Spring salads.  The chickens love eating them any time.

This plant was in the yard.  It was so lush, I intend to dig it up and transplant to my perennial vegetable bed.

Starting Pepper and Other Seeds, Indoors. 5/12/17

 Today I started peppers indoors.  It is a little late, but I hope we still get a crop.  Our Spring is so chilly and wet, early plants just sulk anyway.  Maybe they'll get a better start than last year, when I started them much earlier.

I also started some greens seeds.

I added another batch of tomatillo seeds.  According to the catalog, this is a Polish variety better adapted to cooler shorter summers, compared to the Mexican types.Tomatillo Amarylla.  60 days.

Starting Seeds. 4/11/17

 Started seeds today.  This is later than I usually do.  I'm not sure there is an advantage to the really early start, especially for semi-tropicals like tomatoes.  They sit in the cold ground, sulk, and sometimes never have the vigor that later starts have.  This year I was not as enthusiastic in March, so here we are.  A lot of the packets are old.  I don't know about those 10-year old Celebrity tomato seeds.  That was my mom's favorite type.  No loss if they don't grow.

I usually try some reliable well established varieties that I know will do well, and some experiments.  The experiments are tomatoes, San Marzano (Roma type), Beaver Lodge and Glacier (early Northwest types), Longkeeper (one to keep for ripening past the normal potato season), Black Vermisssage, and Atomic. 

I also bought some Tomatillo Amaryllo, which might not be suitable for our cool and fairly short summer, but you never know.

My favorite tomato is Better Boy.  My favorite cherry tomato is SuperSweet 100. 


I had 2 types of collar green seeds, so I'll grow both and see how they do.    The collards from last year survived the winter, and the spring leaves are excellent to add to salads.  No holes from cabbage moths, they are crisp and mild.

Next to find the pepper seeds. 

Baby Chickens

Training Ginkgo Trees as Large Bonsai. 4.9.17

Ginkgo Tree in Chengdu, China.  10/2013

Ginkgo Trees in Chengdu, China.  10/2013

In 2013, we went to China and visited historic places including some palaces and monasteries.  These Ginkgo biloba specimens were trained like bonsai trees, but in-ground and larger.  Probably quite old.

We wanted to reproduce a similar idea in our garden, using ginkgo trees that I grew from seeds.  They are about 10 years old, planted in a mixed shrub and perennial bed.  Today, I began training them as the start of making our own bonsai-type trees.  I selected branches at level of the tree.  I  pruned then long stems from each branch leaving 1-3 buds per spur.  Then I tied the branches to poles - mainly prunings from buddleia and plum - and lowered the pole-tied branches to a horizontal position, tying them to bricks.  Some, I turned to a chosen lateral orientation, as well as lowering them vertically, so they would be somewhat distributed around the trunk.

It turned out, this relatively young ginkgo wood is rather pliable, more so than willow, I think.  It bends a bit like lead.  None of them broke, despite some severe bending at very different angles from what they started with.

Ginkgo Tree Before Training.  4.9.17

First Stage of Training Ginkgo Tree.  4.9.17

I think this was a good time to start, with buds beginning to swell for Spring growth, but no actual growth yet.  The sap is running, which may have made the branches more pliable.  Even branches as thick as my thumb bent readily, although I was careful and bent them slowly.

The plan is to allow growth along each branch, maybe to 3 or 4 nodes, then pinch the apex of each spur so that they branch more tightly. 

I don't expect to make trees as majestic looking as the ones we saw in China.  That might take decades, which I don't expect to have.  But we might have something interesting in a couple of years.

Near the tops of the trees, I did leave young growth to extend longer with plan to bend to horizontal positions next year.  The maximum planned height is about 7 or 8 feet tall.

Fruit Bloom Diary. 4.9.17

White Toka with Pink Hollywood Graft.  4.9.17

 Here is my fruit tree bloom diary as of today. 

Completed Blooming and Petals Fallen.
Crimson Pointe Plum.

Past Peak but Many Blossoms Present.
Sweet Treat hybrid plum (pluerry).
Nadia hybrid plum (Asian plum x cherry).
Hollywood (Asian plum).

Late Peak.
Methley (Asian Plum).
Unknown Asian Plum.

Peak.
Hanska (Hybrid American x Asian Plum).
Toka (Hybrid American x Asian Plum).
Ember (Hybrid American x Asian Plum).
LaCrescent (Hybrid American x Asian Plum) .
Shiro (Asian Plum)

Rare blossoms open, most not open yet.
Possibly, Green Gage Plum - small green euro plum.

Toka Plum.  4.9.17

Vandalay Cherry.

Hanska Plum.  4.9.17

Hamese Asian Pear.
Hosui Asian Pear.

Most of the pears are not open yet.
None of the apples are open so far.
Most of the sweet cherries are not open yet.
None of the pie cherries are close to opening.
Pawpaws have swelling buds but not close to open flowers yet.

I've read mixed reports on pollination among the American X Asian plum hybrids.  Most state that Hanska and Ember are poor pollinators for the others, while Toka is a good pollinator.  I'm not sure about LaCrescent.  I have not read about the effectiveness of Asian plums with these, such as Shiro which had the same bloom time for me, or Hollywood and Methley, which seem to overlap but not perfectly.

When I originally obtained the American X Asian hybrid plum grafts, one of my goals was to see if they bloomed later than Asian plums, and therefore less risk for damage by late frost.  That hypothesis was correct.  Since this is the first year for massive bloom, I don't know yet if they will actually provide fruit here, or what those fruits will be like.

Sweet Treat and Nadia are new interspecific hybrids, and their pollination requirements are not well known, especially in this area.  With early overlap by Crimson Pointe, mid overlap by Hollywood, Methley, and the unknown Asian Plum, and late overlap by Shiro, the bloom times are covered.  Whether any of those will be genetically compatible pollinators, I hope we learn soon.  I won't know specifically which ones, but I might learn if we have those needs covered.

LaCrescent Plum.  4.9.17

 So far my wild plum hasn't even made buds.  I don't know if it is skipping a year, or if it is just going to be a lot later.  If so, and no fruit, it might be a candidate for removal. 

Sweet Treat Pluerry.  4.9.17

Possibly Green Gage Plum.  4.9.17

Planting Two Grafted Chestnut Saplings. 4.4.17

Grafted Chestnut Saplings.  4.4.17

The two grafted chestnut trees from Raintree arrived yesterday, so I planted them.  The smaller one doesn't look like much.  The larger one is OK although the pruning was kind of harsh.  I guess that is needed for shipping.  The varieties are Maraval and Marigoule, Euro/Japanese hybrids.  They have deer fencing, and I will add the vole barrier tomorrow.

It's always amazing to me that bare root trees can survive, take off and grow.  I hope these do the same.

This completes the various things I wanted to do with the huge area of blackberries that I spent a year clearing.  Now there are 3 chestnut trees planted, and a dawn redwood.  The forest edge has perennials that I salvaged / rescued from the old yard, and the Hawthorn trees have grafts of Chinese Haw, Quince, and Asian pears, for fun/.  The back is planted with a row of Cypress, for privacy, reduce invasion from wild blackberries, and to prevent erosion.

Flowers. 4.4.17

Charlotte Peach.  4.4.17

Daffodils in flower border.  4.4.17

 Lots of flowers blooming.  If the peaches and plums didn't bear fruit, they would still be worth growing for their flowers.  Most of the daffodils were ones that I recovered from the old yard.  They established and are flourishing.  Some are from random acts of daffodil bulb planting that I do each fall.

Daffodils in tree area.  4.4.17

More daffodils in flower border.  4.4.17

Hollywood plum grafted onto Toka.  4.4.17

Fruit Tree Blooming Notes. 4.4.17

Methley Plum.  4.4.17

Hollywood Plum.  4.4.17

 I'm recording the bloom dates for my fruit trees.  For future decisions, I want to know if some bloom too early, and are exposed to frost.  For pollination and multigrafts, it doesn't help if one is finished before the polleniing variety starts.

Here's where they are now.  At my place in Battleground, only the Asian plums and peaches are blooming.

Peak or past peak blooming:
Crimson Pointe ornamental plum.

Peak Blooming:
Hollywood Plum.
Methley Plum.
Sweet Treat Pluerry.
Nadia Plum Cherry Hybrid.

Early Open with a few flowers Blooming:
Shiro Plum - barely started.
LaCrescent hybrid Plum.
Charlotte Peach.  Almost peak blooming.
Mary Jane Peach.

Buds present and swelling but not open:
Hanska hybrid plum.
Ember hybrid plum.
Toka hybrid plum.

I have Hollywood on Toka.  I think I'll remove it.  Hollywood is way ahead of Toka, and is much more vigorous.  I have several other starts or grafts of Hollywood, so removing it is no loss.  Except I hate to remove a successful graft of my own doing.

Most of the cherries have swelling flower buds, as do most of the the pawpaws, Asian pears, and some apples. 

There are tiny insects moving from flower to flower in the plum and peach trees.  I imagine those are pollinating insects.  I cut sections from the unknown plum tree, and Crimson Pointe, and attached them to the other trees, as pollen sources.  I also hand pollinated a little, for Nadia and Sweet Treat.  I doubt that will have much impact, but it's not difficult to do.

Sweet Treat Pluerry.  4.4.17

Nadia Plum Cherry Hybrid.  4.4.17

Mostly, Unknown Asian Plum with multigrafts.   4.4.17

Charlotte Peach.  4.4.17

Maryanne Peach.  4.4.17

Q-1-8 Peach  4.4.17

Crimson Pointe Plum.  4.4.17