Spring, May 1st, 2024. Last April we started buying trees. A willow, maple, honeylocust and birch, and two decorative cherry trees (Kwanzan and Yoshino).
The honeylocust was broken so we planted it across the street and got another. We put them in the waterside and the cherries out by the street. The Yoshino withered and never recovered. The Kwanzan we moved twice, but now it’s in front of the house and doing well. It had its first flower this spring.
The honeylocust across the street was snapped in half by a buck scraping its antlers. At that point, we had already bought four apple trees and started an orchard. So across the street, we planted four different cherry trees. On the yard orchard side, we added two pear trees and two peach trees.
Everything by that point was in late summer stages, sporting large, dull green leaves. But after a month of deer thrashings and Japanese beetle raids, half the plants looked like Swiss cheese and others were barren and destitute. I was a little worried about a couple of them, the Kwanzan, the oak and the two honeycrisp apple trees especially. They were ravaged by the beetles.
But, this spring, the raspberry plants and the pink lady apple tree were the first to show their leaves. The two peach trees burst into pink flowers before the other trees had finished leafing. Now, by the end of April, most of their flowers have fallen and they are leafing themselves.
All the fruit trees are lush with spring leaves at this point. The shade trees are much slower to open up (with the exception of the willow, which started before any of them). The birch started while the others were budding. The maple leafed next, and when the oak finally woke up it surpassed the all but the birch in leafing. Now it’s just the honeylocust left, slowly starting unfurl its little leaf-balls.
The blueberry bushes are only now starting to green and the blackberry vine started and stopped twice. Now it has one leaf growing. The strawberries all perished because the containers were not insulated and the roots froze 😦
We did, however, plant new ones across the street 🙂 So – without further ado, here’s the spring line up, starting with the back orchard. These trees, in order, are the Burgundy Plum (just transplanted and pretty beat up), the Ranier, Black Tartartian, Bing and Stella cherry trees. All are looking fully green and leafy.
The yard orchard contains, in order, the Granny Smith, Pink Lady, and two honeycrisp apple trees. The second half are the Bartlett and D’Anjou pear trees and the Junegold and Georgia peach trees.
For shade we have the Himalayn and Dakota birch, the sunset maple, weeping willow, honeylocust and red oak trees. As of now, they aren’t offering much in that regard. If they grow between a foot or two a year, then maybe in a decade we could sit under one 😀
Akralon World 