Edible, Deciduous, Temperate, Wind break?

G'day all,

Does such a thing exist? we can't seems to find anything suitable.

We want to plant something edible and deciduous in front of a building (passive solar issues), but we have high wind - thoughts?

We don't really have the room for a wind break on the prevailing side, as the terrace is only going to be about 5m (16ft) deep

One option was a pergola with grapes.....but that involves building a massive pergola (some 20m long) which we're not keen on at this stage. Read I'm too lazy and just want to bang in some trees...

One thought was putting large hugels at right angle to contour (that just happens to be the wind direction)....but then we'll only get fruit to the height of the hugel (not a bad thing I guess...make harvesting easier)

There will be more terraces above this, that we planned on growing vegetables on....I suppose we could grow veggies in the hugels instead and plant trees in between, like the bottom terrace shown below?

Here is a scribble to explain what is going on:

How tall does it need to be to do what you want it to do?

Ken W Wilson wrote:How tall does it need to be to do what you want it to do?

About 4-5m max height, shade in summer, dormant in winter, something we can eat

.....thinking a pergola might be the best option, as painful as that is

I don't know much about your weather. Plums, peaches, apricots, and cherries would work here and would be in that size range. Late frosts usually knock off the blooms of apricots, sometimes all these types, but they're worth the gamble here. Do they grow there? Montmorency cherry is the most reliable here. Blooms a bit later and usually has no disease problems and insects don't bother them too badly. I almost always get cherries with no care other than pruning.

Ken W Wilson wrote:I don't know much about your weather. Plums, peaches, apricots, and cherries would work here and would be in that size range. Late frosts usually knock off the blooms of apricots, sometimes all these types, but they're worth the gamble here. Do they grow there? Montmorency cherry is the most reliable here. Blooms a bit later and usually has no disease problems and insects don't bother them too badly. I almost always get cherries with no care other than pruning.

We dont get frost because we're on top of a big hill. Lucky in that respect, but the wind is a massive issue. Up to 60kms/h is not unusual, so we'd loose all the blossom. We've got zero fruit trees at present, its all "virgin" (lots of forest though)

Peter Kalokerinos wrote:G'day all,

Does such a thing exist? we can't seems to find anything suitable.

We want to plant something edible and deciduous in front of a building (passive solar issues), but we have high wind - thoughts?

We don't really have the room for a wind break on the prevailing side, as the terrace is only going to be about 5m (16ft) deep

One option was a pergola with grapes.....but that involves building a massive pergola (some 20m long) which we're not keen on at this stage. Read I'm too lazy and just want to bang in some trees...

One thought was putting large hugels at right angle to contour (that just happens to be the wind direction)....but then we'll only get fruit to the height of the hugel (not a bad thing I guess...make harvesting easier)

There will be more terraces above this, that we planned on growing vegetables on....I suppose we could grow veggies in the hugels instead and plant trees in between, like the bottom terrace shown below?

Here is a scribble to explain what is going on:

so how bout some bushes. Cherry or Almond, Hazelnut maybe. Bushes are our first line of defense in our wind break. Bushes + wind block = success.

Figs. A self pollinating variety. The blooms on my Hardy Chicago are so small I never even notice them. Seems like they'd be less likely to blow off than most blooms.  One year my tree froze to the ground, but grew back fast, then a storm broke all the new growth off. Stakes would probably be a good idea. We get stronger winds here than that but not regularly. Blooms can stand up to it for a while. I don't know about daily wind.

You might consider some shorter, thicker bushes in front of the main trees to protect some of the blooms. Hazelnuts would be good for that if they'll grow there. They're wind pollinated, so maybe they can stand the wind.

I'm not familiar with any other trees than don't need quite a bit of cold weather.

Thanks for the various suggestions (figs could work out nicely), we'll investigate and come back on where we land.

Cheers,
Peter

"About 4-5m max height, shade in summer, dormant in winter, something we can eat"

Using this as the basis.

Since you're probably looking for close to full height wind protection, I would say hazelntus and elaeagnus.

In my experience elaeagnus might require staking the first 2-3 years if you have really strong winds because the above-ground part seems to develop too quickly and root growth can't keep up, making the plants vulnerable. They should be fine from that point onwards. But this could all depend on the local situation; just observe closely. Oh and... They are very edible esp if you get the named cultivars.

Maybe also something lower to put in the (wind-side) front. Rosa rugosa?

Blackthorn (sloe) could also be interesting.  And seabuckthorn (Hippophae rhaminoides), but that's kinda slow growing (especially in comparison to the others mentioned).

You're in Australia, I'm in Europe so I'm probably failing to mention all sorts of excellent local-to-you ideas

Ever read plants for a future?
http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Hippophae+salicifolia

dirk maes wrote:Ever read plants for a future?
http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Hippophae+salicifolia

Funny you mentioned that. I just ordered a whole heap of seed, including some of this. Thanks!