Brantley Snipes Landscape + Design: Fruit Trees

Two things collide in the early spring of every year, dad's birthday and our secret supplier of fruit trees gets in their shipment. Now, to disclose the source would bring about unwanted competition, so it must be kept in the strictest of confidence. For years now, we have had the tradition of giving my dad fruit trees for his birthday, or more like giving the orchard at the cabin a fresh batch of new growth. I use the term orchard lightly because we have always pretty much just planted the trees, provided a plastic cover for the base (to prevent deer from rubbing them) and watched what happened. Yet, we seem to have some luck from year to year with production of various varieties of pear, peaches, apples, and plums. This past summer we had one of the greatest pear crops we've ever had. Luckily, we have made friends Mrs. Grace Dunn, the angel of home canning and preserve making, who ever so graciously made preserves from our pear crop.

We enjoyed the "fruits" of our non-labor so much that we decided to whip the orchard back in shape. First step was to remove the dead trees or those that have passed their prime (some were 14 years old). Then we moved to pruning and finally to planting our new ones. The goal is to create a spraying regime to stay on top of the gall and lichen growth that so many of the trees had issues with. Since orchard management was one of the only classes not taken in my 8 years of studies, this endeavor is going to be a self taught trial and error, so if you have any interest in fruit trees stay tuned as we progress into the trials of Meadowbrake Orchard Management.

peach tree tag.

Fruit tree pollination: For those of you unfamiliar with fruit trees, they must be pollinated in order to bear fruit. Pollination is the transfer of pollen from the male part of the flower to the female part of the flower. There are two types of pollination that can occur within fruit trees, self pollination and cross-pollination. Self pollinating trees can use their own pollen. Cross-pollinating trees must have pollen from a different variety of the same species. Cross-pollination is necessary for apples, pears, most sweet cherries and Japanese plums. For more information on fruit tree pollination visit here.

Planting your trees:

on a mission.

Note: We like to play with tractors at Meadowbrake, so loved the opportunity to hook up the soil auger and go to town...Should you not have a tractor with an auger implement,you can use a shovel. I would also recommend a shovel should your mom have a chihuahua who seems to be oblivious to tractor movement...

Now the same rule applies for all your trees, but we'll use our new fruit trees for example. There is a definite technique to tree planting, an easy one, but one that must be followed closely none the less.

The hole: the hole should be twice as wide as your rootball, and the same depth. The edges should be scarified, so the soil medias can intermix.

mark the location of your trees

dig your hole

voila.

Placing your Plant in the Hole: Backfill the hole with some of the soil to get your rootball at the right depth. Place the rootball in your hole, the top of the rootball should be flush with the surface of the ground. You need to be able to see the basal flare (where the trunk begins to flare at the base) at the base of the tree. Covering this flare, will suffocate your tree. In one year, you will be right back at square one. This is the most common mistake in tree planting...planting it too deep. See the diagram below.

preparing the hole for your tree.

If your tree is "b&b", balled and burlapped, tear the burlap at the bottom and just place it in your hole. Burlap is an organic material and will eventually disintegrate. Make sure that all of it is buried because if one bit remains above surface, the burlap will serve as a wick and wick all the moisture away from the rootball.

If your tree is container grown, break up the rootball to loosen it, as you would with any other shrub.

Cover the root ball with the soil that has been removed from the hole. Often times, it helps to mix the removed soil with some soil conditioner. Place a thin layer of mulch around the base of the tree, no more than 3". Without bringing the mulch in direct contact with the tree, create a depression in the mulch around the base of the tree to help direct water towards the rootball.

back fill the hole

Potential Problems & Solutions:

Fruit trees are not problem free plants. They are susceptible to many insects diseases, which can all be treated through a routine spray regime. Click here for more information on potential problems and solutions for problems within your own orchard.

Now you're ready to sit back and wait on your own fruits of your labor or just stay tuned to see how mine turned out...