- Did you know that you can keep a "mini-orchard" with lots of trees in a typical back yard?
- Fruit trees can be planted really close together - 18" - 24"?
- These can be done in one big hole (i.e. 2, 3 or 4 in a single hole)? These are pears but any fruit tree can be planted this way.
- (photo courtesty of davewilson.com from Stan Plog home garden)
- Trees can be espaliered - i.e flattened - along walls and fences?
- (photo courtesty of davewilson.com from Mitch Shirts home garden)
- Instead of those indian hawthorn bushes everyone has you could have a "hedge" of apples trees which means you'd still get all the pretty flowers, but then you'd also have fruit! (photo courtesy of: monrovia.com,Majestic Beauty® Indian Hawthorn (Rhaphiolepis x 'Montic')
- You can have peaches all summer if you plant 4 trees together that ripen over different summer months? (ok, so that's not about apples...but I'm planning to "branch out" in the future)
All this gave me tons of new ideas. I also found a couple of new sources for apples trees and something called "bench graft" apples. www.kuffelcreek.com/benchgraft.htm Kuffel Creek is a small, home-based nursery that features apples grown in Riverside County. A benchgraft is a tiny tree consisting of a 1-year old rootstock with a cutting of the desired apple variety grafted onto it. The advantage is that you can find more varieties done this way and the trees are super vigorous, as they come with a more developed root structure than the typical root structure found on an older bare root tree. Another source is www.wagonwheelorchard.blogspot.com/. These guys are out of state...Kansas or Iowa, but they still have trees for this year whereas Kuffel Creek is already OUT! I guess there are some advantages to having a colder climate! I'm hoping to order enough trees to make my very own "wall of apples" espaliered along a fence - wish me luck!
