Recent content by sandbur

I reused the cement wire to block some paths where deer were crossing behind our box stand. Added brush adds depth to the fence and deer are less likely to jump the 5 foot fence.

Seed was gathered in the late summer of 2008 from a wild crab with fruit of about 1 inch size. Trees were planted in this location in 2010 after growing in containers. They received very minimal care after that. Seventy percent of the seedlings(15-20 total) resemble the mother tree with 3/4-1...

It got a separate cage. Dang Reed canary grass. I did put a fabric barrier around it two years ago.

Slowest grower.

I pulled fence from one of my 4 seedling exclosures, today. Trees on the south side grew the best. Trees in Reed Canary did very poorly. I should have used weed barrier and controlled weeds before planting. More pictures to follow if I can get them to post.

None of my trees have leafed out like that. I had frost in some locations and couldn’t pull all of the posts on a project.

Neem oil. Dang spell check

I have had the berm oil for years, and never used it. :(

I don’t spray deer apples, but most of those in the home orchard get spray about the first of June and the first of July. The spray didn’t do me much good last year after we had two hail storms.

I don’t blind anyone planting the courthouse crab. It is just getting hard to reach any scion due to the maintenance man removing the lower limbs. At least 4 of us have grabbed scion from the mother tree. 15 months ago, the snow was piled high and it was easier to reach scion. No snow banks...

I have pruned hard these last two springs. The old timers said to take a baseball bat to the trunk to stress it. Maybe that will be the next step.

Sorry if I was supposed to remember to save scion for you. I forgot. I did prune my tree just a bit, but there wasn’t much scion after our dry summer. The original tree was ‘pruned’ by someone, city or county took off the lower branches. Scion is now out of reach unless we get lots of snow...

I did not get any scion from the courthouse crab. Dolgo seedling drop times vary considerably. Some early, some over extended periods. Still no fruit on my Violi’s, but maybe this year.

Look up topwork grafting. I have cut off the central leader and grafted 2-4 to it. Then selected the best grower. Leave a nurse limb to pull sap up the tree for a few years or in case your graft fails. I have also grafted to limbs of flowering crabs. Some break off from a heavy fruit load...