Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Bare root season is here. Choose and plant your favorite fruit trees and roses now.

• Fruit trees can be pruned this month. If you’re not sure how, take advantage of one of the fine classes being offered this month.

• Primroses will give you the most color during this cold weather. Choose some pretty ones now for your boxes and beds.

• Strawberries can be planted any time now. Get them in early, and you’ll be picking strawberries this summer.

• FREE Fruit Tree Pruning Classes on Saturday and Sunday, January 19-20 from 10 AM to 3 PM. Call Sanhedrin Nursery, 459-9009, for details.

Backyard Orchard Culture

For years, most of the information about growing fruit trees came from commercial orchard culture. These methods promote maximum size for maximum yield but require 12-foot ladders for pruning, thinning and picking, and 400 to 600 square feet of land per tree to allow for tractors.

But the needs and priorities of the backyard orchardist are quite different. Most homeowners want to maximize the amount of fruit production in a limited area and be able to harvest fruit over a long season. This includes planting a variety of fruit trees with different ripening times.

If you have limited space for your orchard, there are several techniques you can use to maximize the yield in that area. Two, three or four trees in one hole, espalier, and hedgerow are the most common of these techniques.

By planting two or more trees in one hole, you restrict the vigor of the trees, effectively dwarfing them. It is important that they are on rootstocks of similar vigor. For example, using a four-in-one-hole planting, four trees on Citation rootstock would be easier to maintain than a combination of one tree on Lovell, one on Mazzard, one on Citation, and one on M-27.

Planting more varieties can also mean better cross-pollination of pears, apples, plums and cherries, which means more consistent production.

Espalier is the practice of controlling plant growth so that it grows relatively flat against a structure such as a wall, fence, or trellis. To develop an espalier, fan, or other two-dimensional form, plant the tree 6-12 inches from the structure and remove everything that doesn’t grow flat. Selectively thin and train what’s left to space the fruiting wood.

Many fruit trees are well suited for planting in hedgerows. When planted tightly together they form a lovely screen that works well in an edible landscape on a boundary line or to block an unsightly view. The trees should be spaced 4 to 5 feet apart and again be on similar rootstocks.

Smaller trees are easier to spray, prune, thin, net to protect from birds and harvest. With small trees, it’s possible to have more varieties that ripen at different times and give you lots of delicious flavors. Pruning is the only way to keep most fruit trees small. You will need to prune in both winter and summer. Summer pruning is the easiest way to keep trees small. Take in a pruning class or two so you know what to do and develop some confidence in pruning.

There is a special pleasure in growing your own fruit, growing new varieties of fruit, producing fruit that is unusually sweet and tasty, having fruit over a long season, and in sharing tree-ripe fruit with others. These are the rewards of learning and experimenting with new cultural practices and techniques as you become an accomplished backyard fruit grower.

• Many fine varieties of flowering dogwoods, tulip magnolias, Japanese maples and other specimen plants are now available at nurseries for winter planting.

• Prune fruit trees, grapes, berries, and ornamental trees this month. Take in a pruning class and sharpen your shears before you start.

• Spring flowers and vegetables can be started from seeds now on your window sill. Try pansies and snapdragons, broccoli, cabbage and lettuces.

• Blueberries are a delicious fruit that can be planted now from young plants. Give them a rich, acid bed prepared with lots of peat moss.

Planning the Backyard Orchard

Whether you have 20 acres or 1/4 of an acre, you can have fruit-bearing trees on your property that will give you mouthwatering, tree-ripened fruit as well as a sense of pride and accomplishment.

In choosing the location for fruit trees, a place with as much summer sun as possible is best. With a short season to ripen fruits here, we need as much sunlight as possible. Fruit trees should not be planted in the vegetable garden. Worse than root competition, the shade created by the trees diminishes the productivity of the garden.

There is some advantage to planting early blooming fruit trees, like apricots, plums and peaches, on a north slope or the north side of a building. The winter shade will delay the blooming of these trees and increase your chances of having a good harvest. 

Fruit trees should always have good drainage. This is especially true for stone fruits (cherries, peaches, plums, apricots and nectarines), which will not tolerate standing water around their trunks.

The question of whether to plant standard trees or dwarf trees is mostly determined by how large your orchard is. Standard apple and pear trees should be set 20 feet apart and semi-dwarf trees can be spaced 12 to 15 feet apart. In an area 100 feet by 100 feet you could plant 25 standard trees or 50 to 65 semi-dwarf trees at that spacing.

Dwarf trees can also be planted in hedgerows 4 feet apart where space is at a premium. They take a lot of care when planted so close together but will give you a bountiful harvest. Even standard sized trees can be kept much smaller with pruning. This requires summer pruning as well as winter “dormant” pruning, but it can be done where space is at a premium.

You will also want to consider which varieties to plant for a long harvesting season. Cherries are the first to ripen, around the first of June, followed by apricots, plums, peaches and pluots which ripen at different times through the summer depending on variety. The first apples and pears ripen in late August and other varieties ripen through the fall months. Persimmons ripen around Thanksgiving. With careful planning you can have fresh fruit over a six month period.

Not all fruit trees will bear every year. Spring weather conditions frequently damage the crops of apricots, peaches and plums and even apples and pears have good and bad years. Plant enough trees so that you will have more food than you need in the good years, and in the bad years you will still get enough.

• Check your nursery for stocking stuffers: kids’ gloves, watering cans, bonsai figurines, seeds and bulbs.

• Many fine varieties of flowering dogwoods, tulip magnolias, Japanese maples and other specimen plants are now available at nurseries for winter planting.

• Spray for peach leaf curl with copper sulfate. Peach and nectarine trees may suffer from this fungus disease without a protective spray.

• Water living Christmas trees frequently while they are indoors, and put them outside after a week or ten days.

• Fruit trees can be planted now from containers while the soil is easy to dig.

Garden Ornaments

Decorative ornaments serve to personalize the garden, making it more than an attractive arrangement of trees and shrubs. Garden ornaments can be almost anything, from home-made sculptures of endless variety to sundials, wind chimes, statuary, fountains and gazing globes.

The gazing globe, one of the most romantic of garden ornaments, is a stylish accent in the garden. Also called a reflecting orb, they date back to at least the 16th century. They regained popularity early in this century and are now back again.

These colorful balls, 4 to 12 inches in diameter, are made from hand-blown glass or stainless steel, and look like giant Christmas ornaments. The glass globes are silvered on the inside to create a mirror which reflects nature. “Glow in the Dark” globes are especially popular. Luminescent crystals emit a soothing green glow for hours after dusk!

Gazing globes are set on pedestals and used on lawns, in flower beds and woodlands, and around garden pools. The globes reflect back your garden flowers, the sky and trees. They provide color, shape and interest in your garden. Gazing balls are made of blown glass and can be fragile during storms and freezing weather.

Garden statuary covers the whole range from animals and dwarfs to Oriental, classical and religious figures, large and small. They can serve as focal points or rest quietly among the plants to be discovered by keen observers.

Birdbaths and fountains also come in a wide variety of styles. To attract birds, they should be placed near large shrubs where the feathered fellows will feel safer with a nearby bush to dive into. Fountains and waterfalls can be the centerpiece of an area, with the sound of running water creating a relaxing atmosphere. Most fountains simply recirculate the water so you only need to fill them up when water evaporates.

All concrete basins should be covered with plastic in the winter here so that they do not hold water. When water freezes, it may cause the concrete to crack and leak.

Even bird feeders can make nice garden ornaments. Some feeders are decorative and cute while others are strictly functional. But the birds that come to them will add their lively decor to the yard as they flit about in the garden.

Garden stakes are increasingly popular. From dragonflies to suns and moons, these small ornaments add charm and interest to potted plants or garden beds. Some of them even glow in the dark.

Wind chimes tinkle in the morning breeze and bring music into the garden. They can make your garden a place of peace and calm to relax and meditate on the beauty all around. Some wind chimes are tuned to musical chords and you can listen to them and choose the sound that appeals most to you.

Garden ornaments will extend your living area into the outdoors adding color, character and your personal touch to your home decor.