The two Golden Delicious Apple were 2 year old trees when planted in 2006. These two have produced apples. Typo correction: the Red Delicious and Jonathan Apple trees are Dwarf Fruit trees planted in 2007; closer to 4 years old. These are growing nice, maybe close to 6 feet but no buds or apples yet. The Red Pear, also a dwarf is actually much taller. Hurricane Katrina (Aug 2005) did a lot of damage on the gulf coast, destroying trees, major bridges, businesses and numerous homes. There were at least two hurricanes that preceded Katrina but they were minor. Too, we had a couple more bad hurricanes after Katrina. I live in Biloxi and I am located just a few miles from the coastline beachfront. I had major damages and lost 13 trees in my backyard, mostly very large pines and a couple live oaks. I vowed to replant with smaller trees; dwarfs and maybe fruit trees. In 2009 we had some very cold temperatures and again in 2010. The past several months we have seen warm 70 degrees and cold fronts dropping temperatures in the 20's. I thought the varying temperature changes from warm to cold may have affected some of the trees. Example: my Kumquat tree normally has well over 100 fruits but not this past year. Those big nasty pines sort of provided a sheltered micro spot with the sun beaming down. And, a lot of shelter from any winds. Normaly, people are confronted with the extreme hot temperatures and very mild so called winter. I should have uploaded pictures of the red apples trees and the red pear. Thanks for the information.

In the spring of 2012, I attempted to graft a Pear scion onto my apple tree using Winter Banana Apple as an inter stem. (All of he grafting i do is "Whip and Tongue" grafts wrapped in grafting tape. I then coat the wrapped union with grafting wax) The parent branch was a Winesap Apple branch with a grafted Winter Banana Apple scion from a few years before. (I actually have two of these paired branches.) I then attempted to graft two "Kieffer" Pear scions onto my two Winter Banana Apple inter stems. The "Kieffer" Pear scions started to grow, but died a few weeks later. This spring (2014) I attempted to graft this Apple / Pear union again using the same Winter Banana Apple inter stems. I had just enough branch on my Winter Banana branches to try this experiment one more time. This time around, I used "Sunrise Pear" scionwood. The grafting was a screaming success! (I had enough "Sunrise Pear" scionwood to graft two branches onto my apple tree, and two more onto an ornamental pear. All four pear grafts were a success!) I have no idea why this experiment failed in 2012 and was a success in 2014. I do not know if it had to do with the pear variety used, or if it had to do with environmental circumstances. I will re-post in 2015 with an update. There are a few different treads on this subject so I will be re-posting on those threats also. Below are pictures taken on 07/27/2014.

I'm partial to my Liberty apple on semi-dwarf stock. It's a healthy tree (excellent resistance to blight, rust, scab, and mildew.) It's hardy enough for Western Montana, ripens in October, and to us makes a great pie as well as being wonderful eaten fresh. It keeps fairly well, and is good for cider. It may not be hardy enough for your conditions, but is said to tolerate Zone 4. The Gold Spice is a small, very flavorful pear that is very winter hardy, a good keeper that is sweet, aromatic, good fresh or for home processing. But it's small- the size of a 60 watt light bulb, if that. Productive, vigorous, and a good pollinator. This year I grafted Ure to my Gold Spice. It's a little larger that GS, said to be very sweet and juicy, good fresh and canned and stores about six weeks. Naturally semidwarf and somewhat resistant to fireblight. Flemish Beauty is self-fertile and a good pollinizer, productive and widely admired. But it is somewhat susceptible to fireblight. Seckel has small fruit on a small, productive and somewhat blight resistant tee. Fruit very sweet, excellent for canning and fresh use. Poor pollen producer. Winter Nellis is one of the most delicious winter pears- rough to look at, but juicy, aromatic and sweet. A good keeper, fireblight resistant. But it may mature too late (late October) for your climate. I also added Clapp's Favorite this year on the recommendation of others on this board. And I thought I may as well try an Anjou. I have two other varieties that aren't widely available, so I won't go into those. Good luck, Mark

Nice farm. The rest of my response does not address the orginal post question, but may it still will be of interest. At least the owner of the house shown in the photo does not have a significant other who instists on painting the house an electric pink color. There is a small acerage not too far outside of my city limits where I pass by when driving to see my daughter in a neighboring town. On the property is built a rather large, modern appearing, yet still definately farm style house. which is painted an electric pink color with white trim. Still, the barn and other farm implement sheds on the property are as red as the farm structure shown in your photo. It leads me to think that there probably are two distinctively different personalities living together on that property. The electric pink house and all the red barns and other buildings can be seen by anyone simply driving past the property. When ever I drive by and am drawn to look, at the property and buildings, it often makes me wonder if the farmer is the one with the more moderate personality, but has compromised with a significant other and agreed to the house being painted that seemingly excentric color. Then I cannot help but wonder, what other seemingly over the top items the farmer must have felt compelled to agree with, when it came to decorating the inside of the house. Good thing the occupants of that propety live on a farm, where city home owner's associations are not able to require their approval of the house paint color selection.