Everyone enjoys picking fruit from his or her own trees, especially since food prices are going up each year and quality seems to be going down. Most apple, crabapple, pear and plum varieties are reliably hardy for our area, while sour cherries and apricots are more borderline in hardiness and are not reliable for fruit production.

Providing wind protection and selecting varieties suited to our climate are important factors to consider. Our short growing season put a limit on planting late maturity varieties. Fire blight resistance is very important when selecting apple, crabapple and pear varieties.

When planting your trees, select a well protected site with good loamy well drained soil. Purchase your tree from a local nursery whenever possible. If they are purchased bare root, trees must be planted before they leaf out. Potted or container grown trees can be planted much later in the spring, but care must be taken not to disturb the roots when planting. When purchasing your trees, remember that small trees (five feet or less) have a much better survival rate than larger trees.

Most fruits won't set fruit with their own pollen. For this reason you'll need to select and plant two different varieties of a particular fruit to insure pollination. Flowering crabs will pollinate apples. Sour cherries and European plums don't require two varieties for pollination.

Early spring planting is recommended using dormant trees. When planting dig the hole larger and deeper than the roots spread. Arrange to have the graft at soil level as you work the soil around the roots. The graft on sour cherries and apricots should be two inches below soil level. Tamp the soil, leave a depression around the tree and water well.

Cut back the tree to compensate for root loss. If the trees haven't been pruned, remove poorly placed branches and shorten the remaining ones and the leader by 1/3 to 1/2 their original length. The proper time to prune is early spring after severe cold has past but before new growth appears. Pruning to select major scaffold branches should be done in the first few years of growth. Pruning point or wound dressing should be used on apples, crabapples and pears to seal pruning wounds.

This page was last updated May 2003

Go to Information Page

Go to Horticulture Page