Created orchard by doing nothing.

A few years ago I decided to stop mowing a large area near two old cherry trees on my property.

Last week I was walking through the area and was surprised to see blossoms on some of the "junk" trees in with all the tall weeds.

Turns out I have about 12 to 14 6ft/2m tall cherry trees that apparently self-seeded from the two older trees, and apparently they are quite precocious.

yay me. I love little happy accidents like this.

Are you sure these are not seedlings but suckers?

David

That's great, Cris. I love watching what pops up in unmowed areas...here it is usually lots of persimmons...nothing as exciting as cherry trees!

Very cool!

And I"d love to have persimmons popping up. I *did* find lots of paw paws along the path in my woods, unfortunately the week they needed to be hand-pollinated (they are poor pollinators) it was rainy the entire week and now most of the blossoms have dropped off but I did manage to pollinate some of them (I hope)!

David Livingston wrote:Are you sure these are not seedlings but suckers?

David

You know, that is something that occurred to me, but I wasn't sure if cherries had suckers. I've never had cherry trees or any experience
with them till I moved to this house.

All of the ones that popped up are within 20 feet / 6 meters of the original two. I would say now that I think about it, you may be right.

Judith Browning wrote:That's great, Cris. I love watching what pops up in unmowed areas...here it is usually lots of persimmons...nothing as exciting as cherry trees!

I have lots of persimmon trees too (Diospyros Virginiana). One big mature one that gives me a couple quarts of fruit each fall, and dozens of younger trees.
Weird thing is, where I live they are supposed to be indigenous, but hardly anyone I meet knows what I am talking about if I mention persimmons.

Renate Haeckler wrote:Very cool!

And I"d love to have persimmons popping up. I *did* find lots of paw paws along the path in my woods, unfortunately the week they needed to be hand-pollinated (they are poor pollinators) it was rainy the entire week and now most of the blossoms have dropped off but I did manage to pollinate some of them (I hope)!

I finally got the chance to eat a few paw paws (Asimina triloba to any Australians that may be reading this) .
I've been trying for years to get some paw paw trees going on my property, planting seeds and seedling trees here and there, they are growing excruciatingly slow.....

Tragically, most people don't know anything about the fruit that is native to their area because Home Depot doesn't sell it.
John S
PDX OR

John Saltveit wrote:Tragically, most people don't know anything about the fruit that is native to their area because Home Depot doesn't sell it.
John S
PDX OR

Nor Walmart, nor Target, nor any chain grocery store, nor anyone except the rare farmstand that will take a chance on something that isn't "perfect" in appearance.

One of the greatest lessons my grandmother ever taught me was to get past the prejudices of my eyes and taste the food with my tongue.

Ironically enough, she first taught me that lesson with a sandwich of sliced beef tongue when I was about 4 years old