Bass, I feel your pain, although it hasn't been quite as bad for me in the Northwest as for you in PA. Apricots and apricot hybrids have been very disappointing. We've done OK with sweet cherries, and starting a sour cherry now a year old. Maybe try a grape arbor? It doesn't take a lot of vines to have more than you can eat. Some great NY State varieties should do well in PA, I would think, like Interlaken. Price is good (seeded), and so is Venus (seedless) but there are many more. Maybe a mulberry tree? This year I'm going to try the "Illinois Everbearing" variety, and keep it small so I can keep a net over it (birds love mulberries). Have you tried a pear or Asian Pear? DIfferent class of plums (Asian instead of European) just to see what happens? Probably the same insect problems, however. Good luck. Maybe it's time to put in a field of rhubarb and asparagus.

Last winter wasn't as bad as the one before, I believe the lowest temps without windchill were -40C. It is hard to remember because unlike when I was young, they now factor in the windchill and people talk about -45C when actually it is only -35C with one heck of a wind. So when one person remembers the winter as brutal because it was windy, I think it was fine as long as my fruit trees survived. The Gabe A is now about 4 feet tall, kind of willowy and the branches that blossomed were under the snow line. Above the snow there was not much tip damage, maybe 2 inches. I will also add that where it is positioned is on the south side of a deck so we pile all the snow on top of it all winter. What are the chances of some of the Capilano apricot seedlings having some decent fruit? Or is that almost impossible considering the seeds don't really come true to type.

Never plant the tall Mexican ruellia in Houston! ( I like the short clumping Katy ruellia.) That plant is the curse of my garden. My master gardener friend gave me on purple and one white. the purple has marched more than 1/2 way around the fence borders. She failed to mention that she pulled them all the time and her many paved pathways helped to keep them contained. I sprayed it with Round Up and it shot seeds at me and made popcorn sounds. (That hurt, too!) They grow 7 ft tall in up through my lemonade honeysuckle vine and laugh at me over the tops of the suburban fences. I have pull and paid others hundreds of dollars to pull and they keep coming back, since they also send out awful runners. This plant survived the poison ivy and brush killer and Ground Clear, as did wedellia. The wedellia was gone for three year, cam back and jumped to another bed. I would pour gasoline on them both if I knew that would kill them. The wedellia roots where it the leaf nodes touch the ground and smothered my daylilies.

All gardening is local. I'm sorry, greenman, but the quote "if your soil is right, then, the plants are getting all the nutrients they need to battle pests... “ just isn't true in many (probably most) climates. How does having good soil allow fruitlets to combat a weevil like Plum Curculio from piercing fruitlets in the tree canopy and laying eggs inside the fruit? It's great if someone can be healthy without taking any medicine. So far I've been fortunate in this area. But if someone else is dealt a hand and needs medicine (chemicals) to stay healthy, more power to them. I'm glad there are options in this modern area for us to overcome many of the deficiencies we have. Similarly, it's awesome when people can grow fruit without any chemicals (medicine). But in other areas, we are dealt a hand that makes it necessary to treat a particular fungus or pest at a certain time. What really bums me out is that plants that needed no treatment for centuries in my area (ex: mulberries and blackberries) are now all of the sudden devastated by SWD from the other side of the globe. At least Plum Curculio only needs sprayed when the fruitlets are tiny, but SWD hits them just when they are ripening. Major bummer. Unfortunately, a pest from one part of the world infecting other parts of the world is a phenomenon that will likely get worse in the future. I feel natural remedies for maladies are better than synthetic remedies if the natural remedies actually work, but so many times someone takes what works for them in one set of circumstances and insists that it must work for everybody in every set of circumstances. I believe this is an error.