2018 Fruit tree order - feedback please

[Sam16]

I have a few different small fruit tree plantings... Working on the start of a small 1/4 acre orchard. Let me tell you what I planted last year year.

I am trying to vary the drop times starting in late September and hopefully into December.

2017
3 Kiefer Pears - never leafed out, must have dried out before planting
3 Persimmon - only 1 leafed out, see above
3 Liberty - All survived first year
3 Arkansas Black - All survived
3 Goldrush - All survived
3 Golden Delicious - All survived

2018 - Trying out Willis Orchard and buying 4-6' trees for spring planting

2 Red Delicious - I have a lot of Golden Delicious to compliment these
2 Red Rome Beauty - Late drop was enticing
2 Dolgo Crabapple - I probably need to plant more of these next year. I hear good things
2 Eliza's Choice Crabapple - Willis Orchard highly recommended this one, late plentiful drop (November)
2 American Persimmon - Trying to replace the 2 that died last year.

Any experience with these? Any feedback? Any suggestions to add?

 

[Neahawg]

What zone are you in?

 

[Sam16]

5-6

 

[Neahawg]

5-6

I've never order from Willis nursery and can't say much for many of the varieties you picked. Dolgo should be fairly disease resistant and a good pollinator. Red delicious I've read does fairly well though I've never grown it myself.


Other varieties that grow well with good disease resistance include:

Yates
Dayton
Pricilla
Black limbertwig
Freedom
Sundance
Enterprise

As far as pears I'd look at the wildlife group they have several great varieties

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

 

[Turkey Creek]

You might check out this link. I personally havent heard a lot of positives about Willis Orchard. One thing I would not do is buy grafted fruit trees that are 2' to 3' tall. As a grower the first thing that means to me is that the graft was poor or there is something else wrong with the tree restricting growth. Keep in mind they are in a much warmer growing zone than you and sometimes nurseries in warmer climates decide to ship trees whenever it best suits them which may not be an ideal planting (or impossible to plant) for you.

https://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/6348/0/

 

[Sam16]

Turkey Creek, those reviews from Dave's Garden definitely were alarming. I picked up the phone and called Willis. A lady named Carrie spoke to me and eased my fears. She said if any of the trees ship and are unsatisfactory they will be replaced with no charge. We also talked about setting a shipping date so we can avoid that issue.

I will give them a shot and see what they can do.

 

[tlh2865]

2 persimmons seems low, are they grafted? If so do you have pollinators nearby?

 

[Sam16]

No they are not grafted... I am trying to plant 2 a year in this area for next few years. Last year I planted 3 and 2 of them never leafed out so I am replacing them. How many do you think I need to get a decent stand?

 

[Satguy]

I have a few different small fruit tree plantings... Working on the start of a small 1/4 acre orchard. Let me tell you what I planted last year year.

I am trying to vary the drop times starting in late September and hopefully into December.

2017
3 Kiefer Pears - never leafed out, must have dried out before planting
3 Persimmon - only 1 leafed out, see above
3 Liberty - All survived first year
3 Arkansas Black - All survived
3 Goldrush - All survived
3 Golden Delicious - All survived

2018 - Trying out Willis Orchard and buying 4-6' trees for spring planting

2 Red Delicious - I have a lot of Golden Delicious to compliment these
2 Red Rome Beauty - Late drop was enticing
2 Dolgo Crabapple - I probably need to plant more of these next year. I hear good things
2 Eliza's Choice Crabapple - Willis Orchard highly recommended this one, late plentiful drop (November)
2 American Persimmon - Trying to replace the 2 that died last year.

Any experience with these? Any feedback? Any suggestions to add?

Have you considered Stark Brothers there in Louisiana Mo. Not far from you. I bought 11 trees there last year and all survived the summer. Jap beetles hit them hard and they all re leafed back out fully after that. I bought a Kieffer pear from Rural King and it grew the best and last one to lose it leaves. Very hardy.

 

[Shufigo]

Sam,
For persimmons, you might check your local newspaper for when the various garden clubs, Master Gardeners or arboretums are holding plant sales. They usually have local phone numbers you can call to see if they're offering persimmons. I try to put in 3 a year from these sources. They're never grafted, locally grown from locally successful trees. I've had good survival rates - unless I whack them with a bush hog.

 

[tlh2865]

Persimmons are just tricky because you have to have both male and female trees to set fruit, so ideally, you only need two as long as you have one of each, but more trees is going to give you better odds of getting good fruit crops. But if you're planning to plant a few each year then I'd say you're fine

 

[Shufigo]

And as soon as you have ID'd one as a male, just graft the others to female.

 

[DocHolladay]

We had a big persimmon tree at our house growing up. It always produced fruit. As far as I knew, there wasn't another persimmon tree around. At least none of my neighbors had one and the nearest trees behind my house were almost 1/2 mile away. It finally died about 5 years ago for some reason. It produced fruit(biggest yet) and when winter came and it dropped its leaves, they never came back. I still have a zip-loc bag full of seeds from it in the freezer. The stump was probably 30" or so around when we cut it down.