North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Pat Meadows <pat@containerseeds.com>]

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 08:06:12 -0700, you wrote:


>Bloom dates of ANY fruit aren't always going to be what the catalog 
>says.  In the South, the Mayhaw (for example) blooms in February.  Here 
>in Oregon it blooms in May, about with or just after apples, most 
>years.  120 days could be enough if you have sufficient summer heat, 
>especially warm nights.  And if you never got a fruit, the tree and 
>flowers are still very interesting.  They are also slow growing enough 
>that they will probably stay small (not over 20 feet tall) at least for 
>a long time.

Thanks, it doesn't sound too promising then.  We tend to
have cool summers, and especially the summer nights, which
are often down into the low 40s, sometimes even in the high
30s.  This area has occasionally even had frost in July or
August although - thankfully - that is very rare.

We've lived here four years.  In two of those years, we've
had a hard frost in mid-to-late June.  One was June 4, and
one was around May 30.

We have a fairly small front yard and larger back yard.  The
back yard is occupied by dogs, a vegetable garden, a
small-fruit area (raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries,
rhubarb, etc.) and a hoophouse (assuming we ever get the
hoophouse actually built).  So the back yard is, or will
soon be, full.  Maybe some ducks will be added to the
menagerie next spring and hopefully they will patrol the
garden for snails and slugs.

Our front yard has a pin oak tree, which we like and which
provides shade to our house.  We do have room for some kind
of small tree in the front yard, two of them in fact.  We
would like them to produce fruit.

Alternatively, we could have a large (and strong) arbor with
hardy kiwis and a strawberry bed.  So it's a quandary at
this point.

Pat
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