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Avatar for bbreitba
Sep 4, 2016 5:23 PM CST
Thread OP
Name: Bill Breitbach
Manakin Sabot, VA (Zone 7a)
Thumb of 2016-09-04/bbreitba/f49026

I am planning to put an orchard in my backyard, any advice welcome. Apples, apricots, cherrys, pears, figs, and peaches.

Bill
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Sep 4, 2016 6:08 PM CST
Name: Daisy I
Reno, Nv (Zone 6b)
Not all who wander are lost
Garden Sages Plant Identifier
Hi Bill, Welcome! to NGA

I have some thoughts for you:

Choose varieties that don't all ripen at the same time.

Give them lots of room. At least 15 feet between each planting hole.

Plant two trees per hole. You can plant twice as many that way. They grow to form a single canopy with two trunks. Choose trees with similar eventual size. Don't plant a walnut with a peach, for instance.

Spend some time going to local farmers markets and taste fruit. Ask for the names of the ones you like best.

Don't plant your entire orchard in one year. Plant a couple peaches now and plant a couple more in 5 years. Then, when the first two die of old age, you still have peaches while waiting for the replacements to grow up.

Walnut trees get huge! Plan accordingly. Walnuts should be planted 25 to 30 feet apart.

Learn the growing conditions and pruning and spraying needs of all the trees you plant.

Plant PLUOTS! I love pluots. They need a pollinizer, usually a plum or another pluot. My personal favorites are Splash, Dinosaur Egg and Flavor King (and those 3 will pollinate eachother).

I think that's it. Smiling
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and proclaiming...."WOW What a Ride!!" -Mark Frost

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Sep 4, 2016 7:37 PM CST
Name: Elaine
Sarasota, Fl
The one constant in life is change
Amaryllis Tropicals Multi-Region Gardener Orchids Master Gardener: Florida Irises
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Be sure to consider the eventual height of your fruit trees - do I see power lines crossing over your planting area there? Consider dwarf trees. They take up less room, the fruit stays lower where you can pick it easier and they are still very productive. Even commercial fruit growers plant dwarf trees nowadays because they also take less time to grow to fruit-bearing size. Regular cherry trees especially can get really tall and might take over the whole yard. So would a walnut - you didn't say you wanted to grow walnuts anyway and I sure wouldn't.

I'd also think about taking out whatever the tree is at the left side of your picture. Remember any tree spreads its roots out even further than its branches reach, so a 10ft. wide tree has roots in a 14ft. circle around it. You don't want your fruit trees competing with other (non-fruit bearing) trees for water and nutrients. This is also true of growing lawn under your fruit trees - the grass will consume a lot of water and fertilizer that otherwise would get to the trees. Your orchard will grow better and faster if you remove the grass around the trees and just mulch the ground to keep weeds down and moisture in the soil.

Daisy is right on about the pluots - they taste better than apricots (jmho) and are also probably more hardy, being related to plums. When we lived in Utah the neighbors had a beautiful apricot tree but in the 14 years we lived there it only bore fruit twice. We had plum trees that buried us in fruit every year.
Elaine

"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." –Winston Churchill
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Sep 5, 2016 8:23 AM CST
Name: Sally
central Maryland (Zone 7b)
See you in the funny papers!
Charter ATP Member Frogs and Toads Houseplants Keeper of Poultry Vegetable Grower Region: Maryland
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Read a lot before you commit
http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/426/426...

Some need spraying to prevent disease, most need pruning. Some should have fruit thinned. In other words, this may be a whole new level of care than typical landscape items.

Figs are easy. They should be hardy for you, and I have not sprayed mine at all, no diseases there.

I am in Maryland so we share climate. I've "grown" peaches for 8 years (sprouted seedlings from compost) and brown rot is awful (unless you spray). I've never gotten to eat a ripe fruit. This year looked ok (small, some spots, but good enough to eat around) until something stole every single fruit just before ripening (squirrels?) Peaches grow a lot and should have yearly pruning. I have a Santa Rosa plum, it's become very big in just four years, is too tall for me to prune, I did have a huge crop this year for the first time (no spraying) and ate quite a few small but tasty ones that fell and ripened. ( And a whole lot more rotted).

Blueberries have been super easy and carefree here. Fifteen years on those.
Plant it and they will come.
Avatar for bbreitba
Dec 31, 2016 2:27 AM CST
Thread OP
Name: Bill Breitbach
Manakin Sabot, VA (Zone 7a)
Very helpful advice. Thanks all.
I managed to put 16-20 feet trunk to trunk and planted 16 trees,
Apples, peaches, apricots figs, cherries, Asian & Eoropean pears, and a single self-pollinating plum. A honeybee hive arrives in February. I'm retired and expect to spend many wonderful hours tending the orchard.

Thanks again.
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Dec 31, 2016 7:58 AM CST
Name: Sally
central Maryland (Zone 7b)
See you in the funny papers!
Charter ATP Member Frogs and Toads Houseplants Keeper of Poultry Vegetable Grower Region: Maryland
Composter Native Plants and Wildflowers Organic Gardener Region: United States of America Cat Lover Birds
Thanks for checking back in. I'm sure you'll enjoy your project, (and glad I didn't put you off with my pessimistic/cautionary statements.)
Plant it and they will come.
Avatar for bbreitba
Jan 10, 2017 7:16 PM CST
Thread OP
Name: Bill Breitbach
Manakin Sabot, VA (Zone 7a)
So far so good. Pruned a little. Can't wait till the Spring bloom.
:thankyou:
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Jan 14, 2017 9:04 AM CST
Name: Sally
central Maryland (Zone 7b)
See you in the funny papers!
Charter ATP Member Frogs and Toads Houseplants Keeper of Poultry Vegetable Grower Region: Maryland
Composter Native Plants and Wildflowers Organic Gardener Region: United States of America Cat Lover Birds
The early spring peach blooms are very nice. Might even be pink. I like seeing the bees enjoy those early peach and plum blooms, when there aren't many other blooms for them. Have you got the beehive yet?
Plant it and they will come.
Avatar for bbreitba
Apr 8, 2017 9:38 AM CST
Thread OP
Name: Bill Breitbach
Manakin Sabot, VA (Zone 7a)
I am getting a bee NUC around April 20th.
Thanks for the helpful hints.
Avatar for AlyssaBlue
Apr 8, 2017 11:45 AM CST
Ohio (Zone 5b)
Plant Identifier
Walnut and butternut trees have juglone in their roots, and it will kill trees planted near it (if you do happen to have one.) To be safe, I would say further than 30'.

I've had experience with peach trees. Reliant is a good producer. If you have deer in the area, you will need something to protect the trees as they grow. Apples, cherries and pears are easier than peach.
Avatar for bbreitba
Apr 9, 2017 12:23 AM CST
Thread OP
Name: Bill Breitbach
Manakin Sabot, VA (Zone 7a)
I am getting a bee NUC around April 20th.
Thanks for the helpful hints.
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