To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] What's (problematically) compatible with pear?
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 10:19:34 -0600
The Gardenweb discussion "Just say no to medlars" was quite amusing, and I
note that no one was able to properly defend the fruit. The trees yes, nice
pretty little things with no apparent diseases. I've seen and tasted them
at Hector's place. The fruit, little round lumps, you break or bite off the
stem end after they have bletted and you squeeze a bit of spiced applesauce
into your mouth, and throw the stony remainder away. Persimmons taste
better and provide a heck of a lot more food, easier to eat too given the
usual cautions re ripeness.
I appreciate the cautions re graft incompatibility, there were some
apple trees in a nearby town on dwarfing rootstock that narrowed
dramatically as you looked down near ground level. This shouldn't be a
problem given that pear would be the rootstock. In fact I had been thinking
that I would have the fun of a normally small tree grown huge on on pear
rootstock, but I suppose I'll only get a big trunk and a weird looking small
top. (Ornamental, that's the word to use when a plant is abnormal looking.)
I was relieved that Lon replied it was only one species of sorbus I
should avoid. Of the lot, the sorbus sounded most interesting. I didn't
realize we were talking about a relative to the rowan. I'm a little puzzled
that I never heard of whitebeam after living in England 3 years, and my
Irish husband has never heard of them and doesn't recognize the photos on
Google even though there is a Sorbus hibernica (meaning it's Irish). So now
that you all have whetted my appetite, please tell where in the world...
no, rather where in the US can I get stock? I've kind of been wondering if
I could find a seed company that carries unusual trees, order and start some
seeds, and then graft from the little seedlings onto my pears, which by that
time ought to have grown to several feet tall and could take multiple
grafts, thus giving me X pollination.
So you all don't think that my grafts of sorbus onto pear won't shrivel
up and die from delayed incompatibility in a few years? (Counting your
chickens before they hatch seems like a good way to head off a lot of
useless bother in this case.) Thanks, this is fun. Mental grafting and
growing is so easy, no bad weather, no cuts on my hands either. Donna