Trees orders?

MY county's soil and water district tree sale dips their bareroots in that hydro gel. Helps the pines and spruces with my heavy clay soil.

Everytime a member buys a tractor, they make a mess somewhere for the first year or two. One guy dug the snot out of the fire pit and disturbed the soil around it. I did alot of brushwork, got the fire going good until it was all glowing and time to call it a night. Hosed the snot out of it with the sump pump in the swamp. Took all that nice black charcoal looking stuff and spread it all around the baren sand in the little lawn area. Clover n oats grew great there. Been the best the lawn has seen in years.

Trees arent cray expensive, but time is ticking. ON my heavy clay I use a bale of peat moss to every 2-4 trees. Depending on how much I like the spot or how big I till it up. That stuff is worth it. Sandy soil folks might appreciate manure a bit more. On nicer tree plantings at sandy camp, I bring a 5 gallon bucket of clay soil. Helps retain moisture.
 
How long have your Anty trees been in the ground?? All our Anty trees started slow too, but when they kicked off about year 4 & 5, they shot up big-time. Zone 5 / 6 border in clayish loam soil here.
Several Anty bareroots gone 8 yrs. One of those has fruited the last few years. Ripens in Sept. Just Anty not grafted is nothing special except for supposed cold tolerance.

The Anty grafts from SLN have gone 5 yrs with slow growth/ no fruiting. Kerrs seem especially slow but could be just luck of draw with location. Glacial till has some variation even in short distances.

A winter wildlife crab planted same time has fruited couple yrs. Not sure if that has Anty roots tho, more likely Siberian or some crab stock
 
Last edited:
RocksnStumps,

I have a detailed chart for my trees at home. I try to get things classified by bloom group and any disease issues. Any guess what Violi's, AWHO, and winter wildlife might be for diseases and bloom times.

Cranberry, Kerr, and chestnut buds are ahead of most of my trees. 30-06, crossbow, and liberty are still asleep. Liberty is bloom group 2. Depth of roots with young trees might be a factor too. More shallow the sooner they wake up maybe.

A Cheapskate with no clue, I bought 25 anty seedlings in 2022. No grafts, just put them out. Dug most of them up fall of 2022. Winter of 2022-2023 fence fell down and rabbits beat them up bad. Grafted them one armed in 2023, mostly kerr. Between all the digging, rabbit girdling, and late grafting with another dig out in fall of 2023, I thought the anty's did pretty good here. 2 years later, they look like typical bareroot trees from nurseries.

I planted 3 in a rotting log pile at camp. They rejected their grafts. They're 7ft tall. Likely topwork two this spring if timing works out right. Letting one grow to maturity to see what it does. If its a typical september ripe n drop tree, Im fine with that. Should have an early season tree or two in every bunch anyways.
 
Last edited:
Bigbore,
Somewhere on here I have posted about winter wildlife bloom time in relation to a couple other trees. Find that makes a better reference for others maybe in different zones than going by calendar dates. Darned if I remember what thread tho. I might have to dig a bit

For AWHO and Violis, you might get a few others to post as none planted for me. Bows and Sandbur have comments in past threads and TenPoint is your man if he sees this. He has all 3 in a series of fruit pics in the timeline thread started by Sandbur. All his trees look decent size too.
 
Here it is. In a thread started by bigbore. 🤔

Post in thread 'Later to Leaf out / later to bloom Apples.' https://habitat-talk.com/threads/later-to-leaf-out-later-to-bloom-apples.16875/post-345031
I do like to start threads in the fruit tree section.

Im going to call winter wildlife bloom group 3. Calling turning point bloom group 4. Enterprise is bloom group 4, liberty is considered bloom group 2.

Prariefire has caught my eye several times. Might hve to try that in the future.

Saw that turning point picture on that thread. Excited about that one. Added bonus the apple is green. I have yellow jacket issues at home. Probably will be less of a problem using imidan a few times a year. Several insects are attracted to the red apples more. I doubt yellow jackets who chew wood to make nests are bothered by thicker skin apples. But, it does stop other insects.
 
Several Anty bareroots gone 8 yrs. One of those has fruited the last few years. Ripens in Sept. Just Anty not grafted is nothing special except for supposed cold tolerance.

The Anty grafts from SLN have gone 5 yrs with slow growth/ no fruiting. Kerrs seem especially slow but could be just luck of draw with location. Glacial till has some variation even in short distances.

A winter wildlife crab planted same time has fruited couple yrs. Not sure if that has Anty roots tho, more likely Siberian or some crab stock
Might be the difference in the soils between our different locations. All our Anty trees have done really well. WW crab from SLN likely on Anty, since that's their go-to rootstock. Don't know if SLN has added more rootstock varieties in the last few years, though.

Anty rootstock left to grow un-grafted is supposed to produce a green, "nothing special" apple. I never grew out an Anty rootstock myself, so going by book description of it.
 
Saint lawrence nursery states their siberian crab rootstock is used for tougher to graft crabapples they sell. They got 7 or 8 different crabs.
 
Siberian crabapple is a good option !!
 
Saw a flyer in my email for cummins nursery in ithaca NY. 35% off trees, rootstocks, and scions code is SALE35 through april 28th.
 
My last 2 remaining Contenders from Turkey Creek have flowered really well this year. No sign of any frost in the forecast. Should be a good fruit year for us.

20250421_155140.jpg
 
Looks like Bluehill still has a couple thousand pears available on the website. Never seen them have that many left at this time of year. Wonder what a place like that will do with that many 2 year old pear trees left?
 
Bit of a dilemma for Bluehill. Think pears probably more popular option for the warmer planting zones but they are pretty far along in trees already blooming so ideal planting window is likely past. Apples have more disease issues down south that sway folks to pears also.

Pears up north just don't have the allure since apples will out perform pears probably in most categories. Apples more cold hardy so lots more varieties to choose from and run the gamit of early ripening to late in the fall. Pears also bloom early and more susceptible to late frosts here. Have a few wild pears on my land, likely from a tree in front yard of a farmhouse but they don't hang late. Have planted hundreds of crabs and apples but never felt the need to order a single pear. BTW I just planted my 2025 apples 3 days ago so timing good but no desire to pick out a 2nd class citizen of a pear when there are still thousands of suitable apple varieties to go yet!
 
Last edited:
Bit of a dilemma for Bluehill. Think pears probably more popular option for the warmer planting zones but they are pretty far along in trees already blooming so ideal planting window is likely past. Apples have more disease issues down south that sway folks to pears also.

Pears up north just don't have the allure since apples will out perform pears probably in most categories. Apples more cold hardy so lots more varieties to choose from and run the gamit of early ripening to late in the fall. Pears also bloom early and more susceptible to late frosts here. Have a few wild pears on my land, likely from a tree in front yard of a farmhouse but they don't hang late. Have planted hundreds of crabs and apples but never felt the need to order a single pear. BTW I just planted my 2025 apples 3 days ago so timing good but no desire to pick out a 2nd class citizen of a pear when there are still thousands of suitable apple varieties to go yet!
The pears I picked up looked great. Some were 8'. I'm curious if they can grow them another year or would try to sell/ship them off in the fall.
 
Pears are extremely easy to grow and bulletproof where I live. They seem to be impervious to disease and just keep producing loads of fruit year after year. The only exceptions are the ones I planted in a frost pocket. They will get frozen out nearly every year. Apples and crabs struggle some down there too, but they generally are able to produce about about half the time. Persimmons laugh at the frost pocket and are totally unaffected due to the late blooming. As of right now, I have pears the size of nickels, but many persimmons have not even put out the first leaf yet.
 
Back
Top