If the graft doesn't take you just let 2 or 3 uprights grow the first season and graft all of them the next. Ones bound to take the second year. The graft will grow much faster the second year when the roots are established anyway. On 111 the delay won't have much affect in slowing bearing as long as you choose 3 scaffolds for the first tier and don't cut them back unless it's absolutely necessary to get secondary branching going. With most varieties you're not going to get a substantial crop until at least the 5th year anyway. Still, for a beginner the more dwarfing root stocks are easier to train. You barely have to master pruning at all. 111 is pretty high maintenance, which is good for me as I make half my living pruning fruit trees.

You will almost certainly have to spray for a lot more than CAR to get sound fruit in Tennessee. There are a rather formidable complex of fruit destroying pests in that particular neck of the woods. Here's what I have to do in NY to get useable fruit. Alan Haigh- The Home Orchard and Nursery Co. alandhaigh@gmail.com REPRINT PERMISSION FROM ALAN HAIGH REQUIRED ________________________________________ Low Spray Schedule for Home Orchards in the Northeast Here's my spray schedule for the scores of orchards I manage around SE NY adapted for home owners managing a few fruit trees. It has functioned well for me for over 2 decades, although J. Beetles and brown rot of stone fruit increases the number of sprays and necessary pesticides some years some sites. Stink bugs are also an increasing problem requiring more subsequent sprays when they appear. Time of spray is based on apple bloom as that is the predominant fruit here but I generally get away with spraying all trees at the time I spray apples. Please note that pesticide labels must be read before their use and my recommendations do not override the rules on the label. The label is the law. This document only communicates what has worked for me and your results may vary depending on local pest pressure, which may require a different spray schedule. Dormant oil (this is optional if there were no mites or scale issues the previous season, which is usually the case in home orchards). Do oil spray somewhere between the point where emerging shoots are 1/2" and the flower clusters begin to show a lot of pink. Mix Immunox (myclobutinol) at highest legal rate (listed on label for controlling scab and cedar apple rust on apple trees) with 1 to 2% oil. If it's closer to pink use 1%. Don't spray again until petal fall when petals have mostly gone from latest flowering varieties and bees have lost interest. Then spray Triazide (Spectracide Once and Done) + Immunox mixed together at highest legal rates. Repeat once in 10 to 14 days. Where I manage orchards, the space between earliest flowering Japanese plums and latest flowering apples is only 2 weeks or so which usually allows me to wait until the latest flowering trees are ready to begin spraying anything. Plum curculio seems to time its appearance conveniently to the rhythm of the last flowering apple varieties. This may not be true where you are. If plums or peaches need oil they may need application before apples. I’ve only had mites on European plums here and never need oil for other stone fruit. All this is based on plum curculio being your primary insect problem which is the case most areas east of the Mis. River. These sprays will also absolutely control scab, CAR and Mildew as well as most of the crop fatal insects. Apple fly maggot is an exception as it tends to merge a couple of weeks after last spray looses affectiveness, but I haven't had much of a problem with this pest in the orchards I manage. This pest can be controlled with a lot of fake apples smeared with tangle trap. If you don't want to use synthetic chemicals try 4 applications of Surround about a week apart starting at petal fall. You may need to start on earlier flowering varieties as soon as they drop petals because Surround is a repellent and can’t kill eggs after they’ve been inserted into the fruit.. Stone fruit may require the addition of an application or 2 of Indar (Monterey Fungus Fighter is closest available chemical for home growers) starting 4 weeks before first peaches ripen. Apricots must be sprayed sooner if they are scab susceptible with same compound. Some sites that single spray will also prevent serious rot on later ripening varieties on seasons not particularly wet. Because I manage so many orchards so far apart I have to resort to a spray schedule that is based on expectations rather than actual monitoring. You may be able to reduce insecticide sprays with monitoring but PC can enter an orchard over night and if your insecticide lacks kick-back (as is the case with Triazide), do a lot of damage in a couple of days.. Other problems may occur later in the season and you will in time learn to monitor and react to the pitfalls.

I have several streaked hosta seedlings which overwintered in the ground from last year, but got nipped by a rabbit. One h.'Blue Lightning' seedling is promising and just now develops a scape which I want to use with pollen from large blues. Last winter I started in November to grow streaked hosta seedlings from seeds provided by Mr.Hosta of Land of the Giants. Here are those seedlings of h."Blue Lightning', 'Topo Gigio', 'Fickle Blue Genes' and 'Dorothy Benedict'. They are bigger than last year's already. I got last year a freebie 'Powder Keg' from LOTG but that hosta did not survive. I bought this year h.'Justice' at a Hosta Library auction. How do I like them? I do not know yet. The seedlings which will survive my culls will probably have some stabilized divisions, but it will be interesting. I am interested to create a streaked large blue one. Bernd This post was edited by berndnyz5 on Tue, Jul 2, 13 at 19:32

Thanks much for all your responses! How right, it's December, how can I expect an apple to taste as fresh as if it were just picked off a tree? Although it did have crispness, just that odd streaking (and me and dh thought that the apple might have been exposed to freezing temperatures, but then you'd think it's flesh around the exterior would be mushy?) I've had Gala, and enjoyed them without complaint, and will try some of the other suggestions. Must be location, but I've never seen a honeycrisp in local grocers, just as in the other thread LindaC began with the rd, the Northern Spy apple is not available here either. A girlfriend was giving me her apple crisp recipe (she was from Ontario) and insisted I use Northern Spy for it, until she lived here a while and noticed it was not available. I can be more adventurous, but like beantheredunthat pointed out, dh's (or mine anyway) are more picky. I'll let him tough it out - he can go to the store and pick out his own apples and then complain to himself that there's something wrong with them!