Jay Clark

Anne Miller wrote:

Jay said, "Any thoughts on the marketability of these big monster fruit trees to city-folk?

Will your trees be bare root, bagged, or in containers?

Eventually the goal would be all bare root online sales but I'm starting from nothing, so I'll likely start with potted local sales. I should clarify that my trees will be monsters, but not at the point I sell them. I'll be growing rootstock from seed for 1 season, then grafting before spring of year 2 and letting them grow 1 more season before selling.

Dennis Bangham wrote:You can prune a standard fruit tree to a semi or even dwarf size.  Many call this backyard orchard culture.  On youtube watch the videos of skillcult or on Davewilson.com.

I'm curious about this I hear conflicting reports on how much you can contain the vigour of a standard tree through pruning. I'll have to dig deeper into Dave Wilson's method.

I suspect you may be right. The desire for a healthy looking plant also may require me to alter my mode of sales. Ideally I would sell everything bareroot during the dormant season but I'm starting to get the impression most folks would have a harder time parting with $30 for a cold "stick" in winter, than spending $50 dollars on a potted leafy tree in spring. I guess I need to meet the customer where they are instead of trying to convince them to by my frigid sleeping fruit sticks!

It's also hard to picture your life 20-40 years in the future so I wonder how much people really consider the mature size of the tree when they plant it in the yard.

Thanks for the food for thought!

That's my reasoning too - I guess the main limitation though is that it excludes those who have small yards, but I suppose I can promote various berry bushes or other types of trees to them.

I think part of the reason I'm posting this in here is also that I want to doublecheck in case I'm missing some amazing virtue of these dwarfing rootstocks - maybe I've judged them prematurely. If anybody wants to convince me, I'm open to it!

I will be slowly growing a tiny-scale permaculture nursery beginning next spring. I don't like the idea of growing fruit trees on weak wimpy roots that can't even support the weight of the tree and require external support. For this reason, I've ordered some seed to grow vigorous rootstock, for example Antonovka apple and Ussurian pear. I live in the woods in the middle of nowhere, but I'm a couple hours from Ottawa, Ontario or Kingston, Ontario and would likely begin my sales attempts there.

Any thoughts on the marketability of these big monster fruit trees to city-folk? Should I bite the bullet and begin developing a weaker semi-dwarf or dwarf clonal rootstock to not alienate a bunch of potential urban customers?

Look forward to your thoughts!

None of the Canadian nurseries I've checked with are willing to sell hardwood cuttings this fall or late/winter... If anybody up here (I'm in Ontario, open to shipping within the country) has at least a few of the following please let me know!:

Currant: Titania, Ben Sarek, Rovada, Red Lake, Pink Champagne
Elder: Scotia, Ranch, Nova, Kent
Grape: not too fussy, but seeking varieties that are fairly disease-resistant and cold hardy. Looking for one variety that would make a nice dry white wine, and one seedless table grape.

Looking for just 2-4 cuttings per variety of probably 6-8 varieties total, depending on price. Please let me know!

Oh, glad I mentioned it then! Yes they are odd in terms of pollination in that they are not self-fruitful at all and I don't think they cross-pollinate with any of the normal cherries either, but 2-3 genetically different individuals should work great! There's a black Nanking cherry too and I'm fairly sure it is compatible with the normal Nanking if you want more variety.


They make beautiful hedges! I am buying a bunch of seeds for next year to create a few hedges. Now that you've confirmed cuttings are possible, I'll have to try taking some from the best growers/best fruit producers of the bunch!

These Nanking cherries do seem remarkably tough - it was only when I tried to baby some of them that they couldn't handle it and died!
Was your cutting rooted as a hardwood or softwood? I had heard they're tricky to root - they're almost always grown from seed. Hope it continues to do great - make sure to get him a pollination buddy if you want any fruit (I'm sure you probably already know haha, but just in case!)

Update for anyone who may encounter this issue in future: the ones that were buried deeper looked great at first, before slowly rotting beneath the soil. The ones that were potted up at the same soil line were so floppy and sad, but eventually figured themselves out and lived!
The more you know...