I received my trees from Raintree on thursday so we decided to plant all the trees on sunday before they came out of dormancy (it rained all day saturday).
Here is the order as I received it and out of the box.
I ordered:
1 Old Green Gage (Reine Claude Doree) on citation rootstock
1 Green Gage Bavay on citation rootstock
1 Baby Crawford Peach on citation rootstock
1 4-in-1 pluot with Dapple Dandy, Flavor King, Flavor Queen, and Flavor Supreme on citation rootstock
1 Fuyu Persimmon on D. Lotus rootstock
2 Hollywood Plums on Mariana 2624 rootstock
1 Kiwi
2 grape vines (forgot the variety)
3 raspberry bushes (BACKORDERED)
The trees from Raintree Nursery came in pretty good shape. They were about 4 feet tall and the width above the graft was thicker than my thumb on most of the trees. The raspberry bushes were backordered so I do not have those yet. The raspberry and grapes were actually “freebies” that the nursery gave to me so if i can’t find a place to plant them, I will donate them to my son’s preschool garden.
The only disappointment was the Old Green Gage (Reine Claude Doree). Supposedly it came from Andy Mariani’s orchard so I was really excited to get it but it was a VERY puny plant, about 1/3 the size of the other trees. When I called Raintree to complain about the tree, they offered to refund me 1/2 the tree price. I thought that was great customer service and will check my cc bill to see if it was ever done.
I picked up a santa rosa plum tree from the local Sloat Nursery on saturday.
Here is the lineup. We planted the trees then I pruned most of them around 2.5 feet because I want them to start branching low and stay a manageable size.
I am really excited about the vatiety of fruit trees I have and also excited to graft different varieties on the trees…just have to teach myself how to graft now 😉
Hi – I just found your blog and really interested in find out more. We are new to San Rafael (from SF) and I am finally getting our garden put in. I believe we live in the same area as you do (TL?) and I'd love to find out more about your fruit trees and how you have worked with the soil and the climate. Thanks!
Hi ginger
Yes we are in tl. It is actually a very easy place to grow most fruit trees as we get nice weather with lots of sun and usually enough rainfall.
I'd love to answer any of your questions. We just moved from sf as well but i was raised here so pretty familiar with climate etc.
Thank you! One of my fruit trees questions is about drainage. A lot of the info I read talks about how important it is to have good drainage, but we have pretty heavy soil here. Did you do anything special when you put the fruit trees in to help with drainage? If you'd prefer to email, I'm at aprilrain999@hotmail.com. Thanks again!
Hi Ginger,
The clay soil that we have does make it harder to drain BUT i see "wild" fruit trees growing and thriving and we have never had an issue with growing fruit trees at my parents house. They live 2 blocks away and have had: plums, apples, cherries, apricots, guava, oranges, lemon, grapefruit and have never done anything special to their soil.
I tried to make sure not to plant in any low areas of the yard that tends to have standing water after heavy rains and also planted my trees on a slight slope to help with drainage. I bet you can help with your drainage issue by either planting in a slightly raised bed or mound. Or on a slight incline.
There is also some rootstock that is better for soggier soils but i really don't think it will be that huge of a problem especially since we get most of our rain during the winter when the trees are still dormant.
if you can describe where you want to plant your trees, maybe i can give better advice.
Hmm is anyone else encountering problems with the images on this
blog loading? I’m trying to figure out if its a problem on my end or if it’s the blog.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Hi – thanks for the heads up! the images have been fixed. cheers
I don’t know if it’s just me or if everyone else experiencing issues with your blog.
It appears as if some of the text in your content are running off the
screen. Can somebody else please comment and let me know if
this is happening to them as well? This may
be a problem with my web browser because I’ve had this happen previously.
Appreciate it