Mike Ellan

The tree looks so much happier after the pruning, thanks a ton for the guidance! I could be imagining things but it seems to have grown since I pruned it last week. I soaked it quite well after adding some mulch. I'll wait for fall to shorten those upper and gangly side branches. Thanks again!

Howdy folks, I just wanted to circle back and post a pic of the trees we recently planted. The holes were big (at least for me) at around 3.5' deep and 3.5' across. The freshly scraped sod was just flipped over and dropped into the bottom of the hole. We then added a small amount of decaying leaves, branches and sticks from the tree-line and topped it all off with a healthy 4" of mulch. The dirt was shaped to hold a bit of water and I've been watering them every few days for the past 2 weeks. They all seem to be doing great so far.

Thanks a ton for the tips, we noticed 10 or so raspberry clumps shooting up so we decided it would be the first area we'd focus on from a guild standpoint. Its that area in the upper right, we laid cardboard and mulch over the area leaving just the raspberries exposed and watered it all with a fairly decent soak.

We still have about 7 trees to go but we may wait until next spring, the heat is really starting to kick in. I could tell the trees were stressed the first couple of days. Anyhow, thanks again!!!

Thanks a ton for the guidance, we’re looking forward to getting this one course corrected but really haven’t much experience. Y’all are awesome!

We are getting ready to plant quite a few new trees and bushes. We decided to leave this apple (we think) tree given aside from seemingly little to no pruning during its time here (we moved in about 8 months ago) it seems healthy but a secondary tree has grown from what appears to be the original graft. I've included a few photos below. The first is the tree clump itself with our intended cuts. The second being the base. My wife and I were thinking we'd cut the secondary down to about 1" off the graft while cleaning up the other sucker/shoots that have shot up while also pruning back that lowest branch on the main tree.  


Does this seem like a good approach to giving the tree a chance to thrive and if so, is it too late in the season to do it now or should we wait until fall? Thanks a ton in advance for any feedback!

Thanks for the guidance! Some of the darker areas have spread along the main trunk and we've seen no additional growth on any of the buds. The bark seems to want to tear open, almost like its being stretched and then it seems to split, revealing near charcoal black underneath. I haven't fiddled with them since the pruning beyond physically isolating them but they seem to be going downhill pretty fast. I think I'm going to chop and burn them next weekend if this black core & peeling bark seems to spread. As unhealthy as it must be for the poor trees, it's quite fascinating & shocking to see how quickly whatever this is moves once it takes hold.

Hey folks, my wife and I had planned for a few Bartletts in the fruit guild groupings we are working on but hadn't planned on incorporating them until next season. I happened to notice 2 #5 Bartlett semi-dwarfs at Tractor Supply yesterday on sale for $10 each. I noticed what I initially thought may be cold or wind damage and figured it was worth attempting to see how they'd do once in the ground but now I'm hesitant after learning about fire blight.

The last thing we want to do is jeopardize any other trees. Both are still in pots, I've trimmed all twigs and what I'd consider a few branches that were either entirely black and shriveled or well on their way. Currently the trees have just started to push out leaves. It has been a particularly wet and cold spring here in KY (which is another reason I thought it was just weather related).

Here are a few pics of what I think (total newbie and purely based on comparing photos online) may be fire blight cankers setting into the main stalks. Am I just being paranoid and if not, what would be the best way to help these two recover?

Thanks a TON in advance for any insight!

Thanks for the help! We're so excited and plan to head up to our local nursery this weekend to learn what will be coming in next month. We learned that Persimmon is native here in KY and plan to incorporate a few of those as well. We'll be sure to post pics along the way.

We've got a few hollows where the soil alongside the seasonal creeks looks incredible. Would it be safe to do a 50/50 mix of that along with the existing clay or would that be too much amendment?

Thanks again!

Hello! My wife and I have been noodling on ways to incorporate a variety of fruit trees and berry bushes into this sloping area on our property here in KY. It is an extremely dense, slightly acidic clay-based soil. We'd like to get bare root trees in the ground next month so we are trying to think of a way we can plant while slowly addressing draining and amendment over time. I've attached a pic of the area, please forgive my lack of photo editing skills. We'd like to go with apple, paw-paw and pear up where you see the green dots while having blue and blackberries down lower on the slope with the blue dots.

Our current plan is an array of raised beds (plenty of lumber available) for the berries down lower on the slope. It is somewhat hard to tell from the photo but the slope is fairly aggressive. For the trees, we plan to dig and amend large pits with our small backhoe. Soil drainage is around 1" per hour so we'd like to get some organic material in the holes to help break it up.

We'd love feedback on the above plan as this would be our most ambitious endeavor. We want to get it right, especially so that our children can enjoy them later down the road but we keep dragging our feet and feel like yet another season might slip away before we do anything. We've had great success with our veggie garden & greenhouse back up at the house and our catfish are getting nice and fat down in the pond. This fruit and berry orchard though... We just feel somewhat paralyzed out of fear of doing it wrong.

Any suggestions would be HUGELY appreciated, thanks a ton in advance!