Nice Little Dancy

I picked up a nice little Dancy mandarin tree at Lowe's. We have been getting those tiny mandarins from the grocery store in those mesh bags that are so easy to peel in the winter, and the idea to have a tree filled with those fruit sounded awesome!

It was planted in a very large pot, and overwintered, and had a heavy flower load, then started dropping all of it's flowers, and in a panic I determined that I cannot grow fruit trees in pots because the irrigation when it is on the same cycle as the rest of the yard, it is too difficult to dial in. Well it is just too much water in a pot. The same amount of water in the yard is a different outcome so in the yard it had to go.

Now, next to the patio where I had taken out the Pink Lady seemed like a promising spot. I had already filled in that spot with a pineapple guava and I was pleased with the fact that this is a foundational spot, this is the corner of the yard, and to have an evergreen there for winter was something that was needed because that whole area loses any sign of life, the peach loses it's leaves, the asparagus and the cannas completely disappear, and all you have are a few vining branches of the orange tube flowering vines and some iris.

So I snuggled the mandarin in next to the pineapple guava, and between the two of them there is humidity for this baking hot corner, and I think it will fare okay in the long run. I particularly like the depth of the plantings in this corner.

Transplanting a tree with fruit was daunting, and it did drop a few but I think there are 4 left, and it will be the first fruit for this tree if they hold on!

Some of the leaves have curled, and I wonder about the water difference, and the location difference of sun and heat, and the mulch, how it pulls nitrogen to break down. There are all of these differences to have to isolate why a particular thing is happening, like why are the new leaves curling? So I am watching it to see if it modifies back to normal.  What do you think? Mulch? You know, even a bagged product of soil to add to the planting hole can rob your nitrogen. I think it is the soil I bought to add while planting.

Off with Bigfoot

I had planted a nicely shaped apple tree that I had gotten from Star Nursery when we first moved into our home. I got a dwarf red delicious, and this was one of the first trees in the yard. It was before my fruit tree awareness... 

I saw the other trees that were available and at the time and it was limited on the variety, and pretty much the word out was that Anna did well here, and there were Annas for sale, but they were rough looking and I said well if it doesn't do well it would be pretty as an ornamental. My have I changed!

It was a very pretty tree, but it never really did fruit, alternating between a dozen to 2 dozen apples, and I considered it a fluke and wanted to remove it and start over with a different variety, but my husband was always complained saying it WAS a lovely ornamental, and by that time, whenever I was talking gardening with anyone, we would get on the subject of fruit trees and I would have this tree that was in name only which is no way to have an orchard.

It was the same with the bonanza peach on the dwarfing rootstock, the fruit was not that great, and I had removed that tree the year before, except the apple tree was much bigger!

Okay, so my husband goes away on a bigfoot hunting trip, and while he was gone I removed the apple tree, and I decided that I would plant the 2 1/2 foot tall Pink Lady sapling that had been damaged by a light saber. He was a little dismayed, but I have to keep busy while he is gone.....

It was so freeing to chop that tree down, and then there is the saying that you are not to plant the same tree in the hole of one that was there before, but I decided to go ahead and plant the Pink Lady there and see how it turns out!

Now here is a picture of where it was before. It was in the corner so in this picture it is on the far left. The branches were terminating out below where it was damaged. My experience with the last apple tree was that these branches really had a tendency to lay down and spread out, and I did  not want the tree to be that large in spread, so by cutting all of the lower branches off, I was able to force sprouts higher up on the trunk.

 So here is the Pink Lady in it's new home a year after it was damaged. It has 4 terminating branches and the shape looks good so far!

Brought To Your Knees

Well a lot has occurred about the fruit trees since the last post.

Startlingly, I went outside and my Pink Lady apple was folded over in half, and the top half was dangling and midway was a spot on the trunk where all I can imagine happened is that it had been whapped with a stick in the midsection, and the shock of the impact had scarred the entire core and outer bark, because it was like looking at a section of cork instead of a thin branch trunk of a tree.

We had had company, and one of the girls was running around with a light saber, and I imagine she whapped the tree and it took a couple of months to die, and I tried to save some of the branches to start some pink lady trees by propagating them and they survived the winter, until early spring, but I tossed them, because they really do need to be on a root stock to uptake nutrients in the desert, and to offer whatever the benefits the rootstock provides. So I tossed them. I realized I could only give them to someone as a flowering pollinator, and I decided against even having that conversation.

But what it speaks on is the ability to propagate fruit tree cuttings...

Also what it speaks on is that there is a 2 foot sapling without any branching form.

It was a shocker. To order the tree from the orchard up in North Las Vegas, plant it and have it for a whole year, you are so excited to see how big they are getting, an are so hopeful, then brought to your knees!

What to do?

Staging Area for Tree Drop

I had wanted to add additional fruit trees to the garden. I had a bonanza peach that I had gotten when we first moved into our home. It was a dwarf tree, and it lived on the patio in a pot the first year. I finally decided to plant it into the ground and for nine years we had that dwarf bonanza peach and it was pretty, the flowers were awesome, but the fruit were pale in color, the flesh white-greenish, they were small and they were acrid. The had a slight tart sting to the tongue. So you think 'they are not getting what they need', maybe it is the lack of sun....

They were not picked too early, because you first notice them, ripened, when they are lying on the ground. The tree had a full lush canopy of leaves. The fruit were well hidden. That is why we had the tree so long. It looked so healthy.

Then you hear stories of peaches growing here in Las Vegas that are delicious, then you happen to taste one, and that is it! That dwarf peach has got to go. So I cut it down and dug up the root. I want you to understand what this entailed, so here is a photo of the tree.

 

As you can see from this photo it stood about 7 feet tall. It seemed like a big decision, and my husband wasn't too happy about it, but it was awkward to say I had a peach tree that you couldn't eat the peaches. I wanted a peach tree where you could eat the peaches, not an ornamental, althought it sure was pretty!

 

After it was gone, then I drew up a design of the backyard so that I could incorporate more fruit trees into the backyard space. 

  

                                      

 

Then I ordered fruit trees from the local master gardeners fruit tree order they put together in the fall. 

 

In the photo you can see the persimmon in the area in the top center on the right. It grew from two seeds that I had planted from a fruit I had gotten from the orchard when I worked as a master gardener a few years earlier.  I am no longer a master gardener. You could consider me a retired master gardener.

 

Well the two seeds that I had planted had both sprouted and were 3 feet tall. I had to cut one off at the base because they were not able to be transplanted and I couldn't keep two. I researched it and it did say they have a very long tap root, and if you cut the tap root that it will not survive, and as we live in a very rocky location, removing one of them by cutting it off was my only option.  Here is a photo of the two persimmons.

 

So that is what I did. I only have one now and it is going to be interesting to watch it grow and I will have to determine how to manage it because it is very close, as in extremely close to the pomegranate tree.

So with all of this, I waited for the fruit trees that I had ordered to arrive!




Four Years Ago Today

Four years ago today I planted the kumquats in the backyard. They flank either side of the sidewalk to the hottub.  The overall design of my backyard is not symetrical and this gave me the chance to add a little planted symetry.

You can see the difference in the size of the kumquat trees in looking at the two photographs. 

 

Also other fruit trees to note.  In the far left corner is the burgundy plum. It might have just gone in, or possible the season before. There is a big difference is size. Also the apple tree which is behind the brown rose arbor behind the pillar. The apple has really opened up and gotten a lot taller. This is what four years growth looks like but you also have to remember that I keep them in a "backyard orchard" size by annual pruning.

 

I just pruned all of the fruit trees. I think that will be my next post.