Lazy tree planting -- dropping cores

In short, does it work?
I am getting my kids to drop their apple cores from these delicious honeycrisp apples I got a bushel of out by the fence, and want to do the same with whatever pears come across the plate, but I really have no idea if this will work. I presume it has to work in nature from time to time, or there would be no trees, but are modern apples too hybridized to grow, and is it simply not a good deal to put trees there?

Yeah, I'm pretty new to the whole permaculture thing, and all I'm doing so far is going without shampoo, but the whole idea really rings true with me.

Right now wind and rain are pounding the back of the house which faces south in a narrow valley just north of the last bend of the Columbia river in southwest Washington. A few trees there would be nice for buffering, and apples are yummy.

Apples do not keep true to their seeds so you "may" get apples, but they won't be like the parent. Might be great apples or they could be terrible. You never know from seed.

It works in nature, but at a limited scale.
A tree may drop thousands of seeds each year, but only a few will become trees.

As stated earlier, each seed is a unique 'life'. No two will be identical. May barely be identified with either parent.
Don't expect delicious honeycrisps from those trees.
Commercial apples are produced by grafting from known, favorable trees.

What you end up with may be delicious, or just 'cider apples', or even just hog & chicken feed.
But, then again, it costs nothing to try. (And, Honeycrisps are not cheap at the store!)

But will they indeed start to grow without special preparations? edit- Cool!

The beauty of the roadside stand. I got them for a buck a pound and they were massive!

I'm not too set on having the trees produce good fruit as much as having a screen from the sun or whatnot. Fruit would be a bonus.

To insure a better group of trees, I'd get the seeds started in little pots in a controlled environment. You'll get a "much" greater number of them growing than just leaving it to chance.

I would think you'd have more luck being slightly less lazy and digging a small hole with a trowel before droping your core. Just a scope or two. If you really wanted to get fancy involved you could grab a handful of wood ash/bio char or a handful of compost and throw that on top. But the lazy way might work too. Depends largely on your weed pressure I would imagine.

Weed Pressure - that's another great band name

Howdy Mike! Welcome to Permies. Go for it. I am doing it on my land. I figure why not. I have so much to do and so little time that I figured I would let nature sort it all out. I will let you know in about 5 to ten years if they grow that way !