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Fruit & Orchards

Plums, Asian Pears, and Persimmons in Portland, OR area?

14 years ago

Hi,

I'd like to mail order some fruit trees for my brother who lives in Portland, OR area where the summer is dry and relatively cool, and winter/spring is very wet.

I am considering the following trees from Bay Laural Nursery:

Plum: 4-N-1 LOW CHILL PLUM COMBO 3 of these 5 varieties depending on availability: Beauty, Burgundy, Golden Nectar, Methley, Santa Rosa.

Asian Pear: 4-N-1 Asian Pear with Chojuro, Hosui, Shinseiki and 20th Century. 3 of these varieties.

Persimmon: FUYU ('JIRO')

I am considering multi-budded trees mainly because of limited gardening space, and the need for cross pollination. But I am wondering what the disadvantages would be for planting multi-budded, instead of 2 or 3 different trees.

I am also wondering if Fuyu will ripe in time for the Portland area.

Please let me know what you think about these selections. Thanks.

Francis

Comments (3)

larry_gene
14 years ago
I'm not an expert about this, I'm just in Portland.

I see plums, asian pears, and persimmons of both large and small, squat varieties turn color and fall off Portland trees every year. So they would be ripe.

The only thing I would question is if more local mail-order nurseries (One Green World, Raintree) would have fruit trees specifically suited to Portland climate, but if they and Bay Laurel offer many of the same varieties, it is a moot point.
tcstoehr
14 years ago
Combo trees have their own issues. In particular the most vigorous varietie/s end up dominating the tree at the expense (or death) of the less vigorous grafts. Of these plum varieties I have only one which is Santa Rosa. It has grown quite vigorously for me here and produced a small to medium number of juicy but bland fruits. I don't know of any commercial production of asian plums around here, but there are orchards of euro plums (prunes). Although I have had mixed success with euro plums, the fruit quality has been very good.
I have a Fuyu Persimmon but it hasn't bloomed or produced yet. It seems quite happy so far, although it seems to leaf out quite late.
Asian pears do quite well here as do euro pears. Coddling moth will be a problem.
Have you considered a Desert King or Latarulla Fig? No pollination or insect issues.
Apples do quite well here as well, but again Coddling moths are a formidable problem.
How about growing Marion berries? The world's most delightful cane berry and grows here as well as anywhere in the world. Or thornless blackberries.
You could also post your question on www.homeorchardsociety.com for some more local expertise.
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I am interested in starting a small orchard with some of my favorite fruits. I am looking for Plum trees, any kind but I especially would like a purple leaf variety. Pear trees, a couple varieties unless I can get one that is self fertile, and non astringent asian persimmons like fuyu or giro. If you have any of these available please let me know. Thanks, Pat
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Marnie, I've got Rosseyanka(Nikita's Gift) here in zone 6, and I know that it works well at least as far north as Terre Haute, IN. It's late maturing - hangs well on the tree - is mostly seedless, and produces large(2-2.5"0 fruits. I've been somewhat disappointed by its lack of flavor, though. Keener, a reputed/disputed D.kakiXvirginiana hybrid produces fruits of similar size that ripen a little earlier and have more flavor - more like American than Asian. Virtually any of the American persimmon varieties ought to work just fine in a zone 5 setting. Meader is OK, but there are others that are better, including its parent, Early Golden.Meader is often touted as being seedless, but that's mostly a PNW phenomenon, due to climate conditions; in the east, it's most likely to be seeded. Yates & Prok are hard to beat for size and flavor. John Rick is another good one & Morris Burton gets rave review on flavor, but fruit is small. Then, there's the whole bunch of Claypool selections, bred by Jim Claypool in IN. Here is a link that might be useful: Nolin River Nut Tree Nursery
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Lucky,i am surprise at what you are writing. Asian do not need a lot of hours to start coming-out of dormancy,i believe around 200-300 hours. All my asians bought from edible landscaping in 2003 died,because of the rootstock allowing them to coming-out way too soon.Americans usely are much later. My 3 year old asian i grafted on my native do not need any protection. I high graft them at about 5 feet, mainly to start latural branches higher up,because of deer problem in my area(lots of them). I train my persimmon much like apples. I just cut the central leader after 3 scaffold laturals. I try to keep my tree,s at 9 feet.I am not that young anymore(73).Because i live in the Ozarks,hardwood leaves in the fall is the norm and my backpack leafblower get some heavy work-out.I leafblow all the leaves towards the orchard and than clean-up april 15 most of it. My paw-paw,s area get most of the leaves also my fig tree,s. I pile the leaves up high around my figs( I have plenty of them).
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Korean Giant ripen around early-mid Oct in zone 6 a. It probably will ripe around mid to late Oct for you. Should not be too late. Very good and productive tree, worth a try. Not sure why the northern ridge nursery does not carry northern peach varieties. Flordaking as the name implies is a southern peach!!! Of the 4 that nursery carry, I would choose Red Haven or Elberta over the other two. You can't go wrong with either. They are good peaches. I do not know if they will produce peaches well in your zone. They may if your winter is not too harsh on some years. When you buy on line, it does not matter where the nurseries are located as long as they can ship to you. Many nurseries are in WA. Those in warmer areas may ship bare root trees to you by March. That's OK, just keep them in the box, in a dark place, make sure the roots are moist (not wet), they will keep until April when you can dig the ground. Otherwise, you can tell them to ship trees to you when you can work the ground. Burntridge Nursery is good. Autumnridge is bad. Whenever you come across any on line nursery, just google "Scoop on + the name of the nursery", info about that nursery will show up. It's done by a garden watchdog, Dave's Garden. Avoid the one with a lot of negatives. Nurseries like Cummins, Adam County Nursery, Grandpa's Orchard, Burntridge, One Green World, Raintree, Vaughn, Stark's Brothers are reputable.
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sautesmom Sacramento
14 years ago
I don't think the "low-chill" plum would be a good idea. Low chill can mean it blooms early, and maybe too early to avoid frost/snow in Portland.
I agree you should check out Raintree and One Green World. Raintree has more multi-graft trees, but One Green World might be a little closer in proximity to Portland (but Portland is almost half-way between the two)

http://www.onegreenworld.com/

http://www.raintreenursery.com/catalog/index.cfm

Carla in Sac

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