Things are looking great, sorry to hear about your drought, that's a feeling I know pretty well. At my site at least every other year on average seems to have at least a couple months of drought, with a few years being exceptionally bad to the point where quite a lot of perennials die (my beach-sand soil is not forgiving). I am so happy for your persimmon and pawpaw harvests, I had to wait at least 12 years to get the first of each on my plants, but persimmons are my favorite fruit that can grow in our climate. I haven't grafted John Rick yet but if the flavor is good I would order scion from someone, I know it's one of the older varieties that Claypool and others worked with in their breeding programs. That spicebush is really pretty, are they dioecious like the native ones? I am not excited about Nanking Cherries like I was at first, they decline and die back pretty badly after 4-5 years for me. I also haven't been very excited about Beach Plums, based on the fruit from the few that I have (seedlings from Oikos), it's small and kind of bitter without much to recommend it, though they are the only Prunus that fruited at all for me this year, and they keep to a pretty manageable size. I'm sure some of them are quite good, maybe I could graft mine over to a selection. Again, very neat and tidy garden, I will enjoy watching it grow up and out, I'm digging the fallen-leaf mulch. We've had frost here for a couple weeks, most of our leaves are down now, but it varies from tree to tree.
Thanks for your kind words PJ. The drought this year is bizarre, as fall is usually a rainy season. With climate change the abnormal is now the normal. 🤷🏻♂️ All of the established plants have done well I think due to my heavy mulching. I need to get another load of chips in the spring to shore up the rest of the yard. The pawpaw/persimmon abundance has been one of the goals of the garden from the beginning and it was cathartic to finally get there after living here for 7 years. I realized this year that abundance can be an issue in itself as harvesting and processing/distribution of fruits is pretty time consuming. I think a well-designed forest garden should stagger harvests as much as possible. More is not necessarily better if fruits are just rotting on the ground. The 'John Rick' persimmon still has some astringency even when fully ripe, while some newer cultivars have solved this problem. I planted it because there's a mature specimen at a local nursery, so I could see firsthand that it did well in my area. I believe the Asian spicebush is dioecious. It also has some minor edible uses like our native one. The nanking cherries have been nothing but problems for me even though they are beautiful when in bloom. The main issue is that a third of each shrub dies each spring due to brown rot fungus. I only got good fruiting on one bush one year and even then the fruits were small and fiddly. I thought about planting some hybrid bush cherries instead, but I have no reason to believe they would perform any better. The beach plums I got from Oikos also had small and bitter fruits. The ones I'm planting now are selections from local populations with big tasty fruits. Beach plums are another plant I've seen and harvested locally, so I know that they can grow and fruit well with neglect. They're really the only Prunus I feel confident growing at this point.
Beautiful work Kyle!
Things are looking great, sorry to hear about your drought, that's a feeling I know pretty well. At my site at least every other year on average seems to have at least a couple months of drought, with a few years being exceptionally bad to the point where quite a lot of perennials die (my beach-sand soil is not forgiving).
I am so happy for your persimmon and pawpaw harvests, I had to wait at least 12 years to get the first of each on my plants, but persimmons are my favorite fruit that can grow in our climate. I haven't grafted John Rick yet but if the flavor is good I would order scion from someone, I know it's one of the older varieties that Claypool and others worked with in their breeding programs. That spicebush is really pretty, are they dioecious like the native ones?
I am not excited about Nanking Cherries like I was at first, they decline and die back pretty badly after 4-5 years for me. I also haven't been very excited about Beach Plums, based on the fruit from the few that I have (seedlings from Oikos), it's small and kind of bitter without much to recommend it, though they are the only Prunus that fruited at all for me this year, and they keep to a pretty manageable size. I'm sure some of them are quite good, maybe I could graft mine over to a selection.
Again, very neat and tidy garden, I will enjoy watching it grow up and out, I'm digging the fallen-leaf mulch. We've had frost here for a couple weeks, most of our leaves are down now, but it varies from tree to tree.
Thanks for your kind words PJ. The drought this year is bizarre, as fall is usually a rainy season. With climate change the abnormal is now the normal. 🤷🏻♂️ All of the established plants have done well I think due to my heavy mulching. I need to get another load of chips in the spring to shore up the rest of the yard.
The pawpaw/persimmon abundance has been one of the goals of the garden from the beginning and it was cathartic to finally get there after living here for 7 years. I realized this year that abundance can be an issue in itself as harvesting and processing/distribution of fruits is pretty time consuming. I think a well-designed forest garden should stagger harvests as much as possible. More is not necessarily better if fruits are just rotting on the ground.
The 'John Rick' persimmon still has some astringency even when fully ripe, while some newer cultivars have solved this problem. I planted it because there's a mature specimen at a local nursery, so I could see firsthand that it did well in my area. I believe the Asian spicebush is dioecious. It also has some minor edible uses like our native one.
The nanking cherries have been nothing but problems for me even though they are beautiful when in bloom. The main issue is that a third of each shrub dies each spring due to brown rot fungus. I only got good fruiting on one bush one year and even then the fruits were small and fiddly. I thought about planting some hybrid bush cherries instead, but I have no reason to believe they would perform any better. The beach plums I got from Oikos also had small and bitter fruits. The ones I'm planting now are selections from local populations with big tasty fruits. Beach plums are another plant I've seen and harvested locally, so I know that they can grow and fruit well with neglect. They're really the only Prunus I feel confident growing at this point.