Trees!

Ison's bare root trees

Over the last couple of weeks a lot of the trees that I ordered in February have been arriving. I've dug many a hole lately. But I enjoy doing it. I used several nurseries that I haven't tried before. The first one was Ison's nursery in Georgia.

I received about eight  2 - 3' bareroot trees and they were all less than twelve dollars apiece. They were mostly plum trees.

It took most of the day to plant the trees and three elderberry bushes. I still have lots of raspberries to plant.

The entire shipment was as follows:

Crandall black currant
Red lake currant
John & Adams elderberry
White Imperial currant
Anne raspberry
Cumberland black raspberry
Dorma red raspberry
Heritage raspberry
Jewel black raspberry
Nantahala raspberry
Polana raspberry
Royalty purple raspberry
Loganberry
Redchief nectarine
Sundollar nectarine
Black ruby plum
Byron Gold plum
Ruby sweet plum
Stanley plum
Orange quince
Smyrna quince

They were out of a couple of things that I ordered and they refunded that portion. They were very easy to work with and the trees seemed very good. Cost $241.

I also ordered some trees from Hidden Springs Nursery in Tennessee. The trees they sent were all really small. I was expecting bigger trees after what Ison's sent. Here's what they sent me:

Apple - Arkansas Black, Black Limbertwig, Hubbardston Nonsuch, Paducah
Cornelian cherry - Bodacious
Gooseberry - Captivator, Sabine
Mayhaw - Big Red, Heavy
Quince - Cooke's Jumbo, Meech's Prolific

$214

Tom Brown Apples

By far the best shipment of trees I got came from Tom Brown of North Carolina. Tom collects old southern apple varieties and preserves them. I sent Tom a message that I wanted some trees and that he could pick them out, the more obscure the better. He got back to me shortly and sent me eight southern varieties that I've never even heard of! They were all about three feet tall and really nice. He didn't even collect any money before he sent them. He told me to just mail him a check after they arrive!

Betsy Deaton, Fleming, Red Kane, Camack Sweet, Winter Banana, Magnum Bonum, Jellyflower and Red June were the ones he sent. I have to study up on them soon. $125

I also like the fact that these trees come from trees that were "rescued" more or less and were on the verge of being lost forever. Apples are not true to type with seeds, so each apple tree is a graft from another tree. Keeping these old southern varieties around is important because they are adapted to our weather whereas most apple trees you see for sale are northern varieties that aren't adapted to the heat we get and the apple quality suffers.

Mid-winter update

Two eggs per day now...usually. It's easy to tell who's egg is who's since they are such different colors. The light colored one is Cleo's and the darker one is Blondie's. Blondie's eggshells are very thick and kind of hard to break. Cleo's crack very easily and it's mostly yolk. I think she is a Jersey Giant. Hopefully they will all be laying very soon.

Fall Elderberry cuttings 

Elderberry cutting in 10"pot

The elderberry cuttings I took in the summer have done well. They are indoors and continue to put on new growth. It's basically a bullet proof plant to propagate.

Most of the goji berry cuttings have done well also. I have at least a dozen of them growing in pots indoors now. I believe that I paid around $15 for the one that I bought and it was about the same size as the ones I have potted.

Propagated goji

The goji's are just ridiculously easy to propagate. I don't remember having a single one not strike.

I cut up a long branch that fell off into little pieces and nearly all of them are now growing. Only the green section of the limb didn't take, all of the woody pieces are living in a couple of coffee cups filled with rain water.

Probably 10 or 12 4" long cuttings.

A few of the fig cuttings are now growing in pots. But I didn't have one hundred percent success with them.

I have a few of the raspberry root cuttings that are still going but they haven't been very vigorous. I think they are dormant.

Most of the comfrey root cuttings survived but the cats were eating the leaves and they got set back some, they are starting to rebound now. I put several goji, elderberry and comfrey plants from cuttings into the yard in the fall. The elderberry I put into a raised bed is going good but the cold hurt the goji a bit. The others in the yard got hammered by the chickens so it remains to be seen if they will come back up in the spring. I think there is a good chance they will.

Persimmon seedling

Seedlings
There are a few seedlings coming along quite well at the moment as well. Back in the summer I put about thirty wild persimmon seeds in a flat and of those two germinated. I put them in pots in the fall and they are indoors now. Persimmons grow very slowly. The tap root goes way down before the above ground growth shows itself. Both of them still have the seeds attached.

Lately, I've started a few citrus seeds from some fruit from the market. I've got four grapefruits growing from seeds I started with the damp paper towel method.

I also saved ten quince seeds and put them in a damp paper towel inside a zip bag and one of them germinated. It's now in a pot.

Quince seedling

Five tangerines germinated using the same method as well. I transplanted those over the weekend.  They are yet to break the soil.

I saved a lot of Bosc pear seeds and they are in the refrigerator until spring because they need to be stratified before they will germinate.

Grapefruit

Although the fruit trees in the yard are said to be dormant over the winter, that isn't exactly the case. Buds have been forming on a lot of the trees and also some of the shrubs have them too. So they aren't totally "asleep". The apricot has by far the most but the peaches also have a lot too. The last frost date for us is the last week of March, so it's just around the corner.

Propagation

These are cuttings of that have been rooted from an elderberry plant in the yard. They are very easy to root. But you have to get the woody part of the stem. The green part won't root.

I used a mixture of sphagnum moss and perlite as the medium. I also put a mister on a timer that comes on for ten minutes every two hours. I think that is key. The cuttings are in a fairly shaded spot for most of the day.

Another easy to root plant is goji berry. The green stems of the goji's will root. The leaves won't even drop off. They just go.

I used rooting hormone to help the roots get started on the cuttings. For comfrey, you can dig up some of the roots of a plant and make small cuttings, about an inch long and just replant them. They will come up in a few weeks. The crowns will grow in just a few days.

I have been experimenting with rooting some trees as well. I tried the same method with several trees, fig, peach, persimmon, asian pear, nectarine and apple. So far the only one that has worked is fig.
Another method of rooting tree cuttings is to wrap the cuttings in a wet paper towel and place them in a container. This method has been more of a success for the stone fruit cuttings for me. I learned this method here.

 Here is a shot of the container with the tree cuttings. The figs are doing the best. The peach are beginning to put on new growth but the persimmons aren't showing much at all, but they might.
In the bottom I put in some perlite to give the cuttings some support.

On the right is a peach cutting that is rooting from the paper towel method.

On the left is a fig cutting that is beginning to grow. Most of the trees sold in containers are at least 20$, so learning how to propagate them is a very beneficial skill to learn.