My Rules for TRYING New PLANTS

Have you ever tried or tested a plant in your yard or orchard and it didn't work. Keep trying? I give you my simple rules to try new plants (tree, shrub or perennial), what area you should allot to a borderline plant, how to use microclimate and the effect of snow cover on survival of a plant. We look at three examples, pawpaw, Asian Pear and peaches.
Filmed during spring 2019 orchard bloom season.
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[@melodyscamman244]

Having just recently discovered your channel I'm trying to "cram" in as much knowledge as possible during the cold weather. Though I have no, or VERY limited formal training, I have been gardening for well over 50 years. My experience with peaches is that if the temp drops to -20°F the fruit spurs die and there will be no blossom set. Also I've found the tree to be short lived... 10-12 years of production after maturity, at least in so. Maine and NH. All of my trees (8) are started from seed, so cultivar and rootstock are whatever nature provided. My biggest problem is gray squirrels snacking on the fruit a day or two before harvest... especially on the two trees which are early... Love your channel... Thank you

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Melody sounds like you need to start snacking on grey squirrels since they are gourmet squirrels. Start with the ‘start here playlist’

[@fezwhy]

You are absolutely right. I had a few blueberry varieties I wanted to try but they were rated for zone 5 and I am zone 4. They seem to be doing just fine so far. I had a few raspberry varieties that failed in one spot. Through observation I found out the area was absorbing too much water. I made sure to put in more dirt and compost as well as wood chips on the next planting. They are flourishing now. Canada has developed some excellent cold tolerant fruit varieties in the last 20 years. I think in my lifetime someone will develop a more cold resistant peach variety. You should check out greenhouse in the snow. There is an older gentleman in Nebraska that grows lemons, limes, grapefruit, oranges, figs, etc in a greenhouse. I hope to someday have the land to be able to build something like that here.

[@josephhenrich7784]

enjoyed the presentation but could not stay till the end due to googles relentless ad placement. I can accept 2 per video but google is getting really carried away.

[@HerEcolife]

I tried a bunch of zone 4 trees in my zone 3 area. So far so good. Not very good with cherries but for prunes and pears did good.

[@backwoodsbaby9729]

I heard pawpaws like yo be near walnut trees. Im planning on putting them under my nut trees. I wonder if hoop houses would keep your temps warm enough in winter to grow peaches etc. Im sure the novelty of being able to pick fresh peaches would make a large price tag worth it. A tree ripened peach or nectarine...oooh it doesnt get better than that!

[@Przyziemni]

if no snow, you can always easily try to cover it :) by straw for example

[@AlcuinMedia]

I tried a Flaming Fury 24-C peach in east-central Minnesota. It survived -28 F, but it had no sense in the spring. At the first sign of spring it popped out and a late freeze took it out. That’s been my experience with peaches in general-it’s not just the winter temperatures, it’s the chill hours that are the problem. Thanks for the video. Food for thought as always.

[@haywoodfarmorchard9101]

I enjoy your enthusiasm. We really had a good time at the fall tour this year, those plums!!!!

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Glad you enjoyed it. Yes can’t beat those plums.

[@SR-ms2md]

Oh well, I guess I‘m pretty far above the 5% 😅 Still the things I‘ve learned from my experiments are valuable to all my plants. Regarding peach I would suggest you try „Wunder von Perm“, a Russian variety which is hardy and produces the fruits on the new branches.

[@clothescircuit]

i cant promise i'll try, but i'll try to try

[@callunamoore]

Perhaps a peach tree trained against a house wall would survive. It works for my brother's climbing rose. And it's easy to cover. Greetings from Warsaw :-)

[@gordonreed248]

Even here in Illinois, peaches only produce fruit intermittently but our weather is -20C at the average winter minimum.

[@DagothChad]

I get -17s here and the stark saturn peach grows even with frosts days within memorial day. Its very vigorous and bears abundant crops. One of the best tasting ive had too

[@shaunrichter3735]

Pawpaws need allelopathic Juglone Walnuts to fertilize them. Try Companion Planting one as a trio with your Japanese Walnuts. If you want to try a nitrogen fixer that needs walnuts try Goumi Berry (6ft Shrub). Fruit for thought

[@StefanSobkowiak]

That’s the first time I hear of it. Where did you discover this?

[@coolmantoole]

My two play plants for SE Georgia Zone 8b/9a are my citrus and a couple of cherry plums. My citrus are satsumas, a sweet lemon called Lemon Frost, cumquat and most recently I added a grapefruit. The plants are making it through winters ok, but we have not had a 16F since 2015, and my oldest citrus trees were planted in 2016. They aren't super productive yet though. As for chary plums, I have a couple of P. caricifera hybrids may be stretching it for a humid heat. To push the envelop a bit I grew out the root stock to about belly button height and grafted the scion into the branches. The idea is for the trunk to be the more disease resistant root stock and the more disease susceptible scion in the branches an not close to the ground. So far so good.

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Keep experimenting and remember don’t make play plants a staple.

[@bhavens9149]

I'm thinking about putting one lemon and one clementine dwarfs in the house, but I'd keep them very small,

[@DagothChad]

Green barn farm sells a paw paw addapted to -40 temps. Its there Canadian paw paw. Bet you if any that would have luck. I'm personally going to give the summer delight paw paw a shot. It ripens as early as August.

[@DagothChad]

www.greenbarnnursery.ca/products/paw-paw-taylor

[@aerialphotolab]

It may be worth trying to give some sort of cover if you really want to do peaches and run water on them from the well if the temps hit too low. Granted up there it would not be an easy thing but perhaps a greenhouse of some sort may work. There are even growers down here in Florida that do that same thing and several recommended that I do that with ours in FL. Enjoying watching the videos you post even though the conditions are so much colder there.

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Right on. Check out Pete Kanaris’s channel (Green Dream’s Florida) for your area.

[@erwinbrubacker7488]

We live 1/3 mi off SC stateline, Western NC, we have Georgia red clay, peaches should do well !

[@erwinbrubacker7488]

Zone 8A.

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Just look around, if nearby peaches grow like weeds then grow some.

[@pierreauclair9074]

I don't know if you can help me but I plan to create a permaculture orchard in the Thetford Mines area but, beside the cold, the ground is compacted.do know any other way than huge tractor to decompact the soil thanks

[@Green.Country.Agroforestry]

We're playing with figs … last year, the cold killed them back to the roots, but we still managed to get a few fruits from them this year before the first frost came. This year, We pruned them heavily, wrapped in burlap and covered with plastic, then heaped the mulch up high around the base - with luck, we will get more fruit this coming year!

[@OakKnobFarm]

We planted our first fig last year (Chicago Hardy, and we're in Zone 5). Do you remember what cultivar you planted?

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Jason there is a tradition from Italian gardeners in Montreal to grow fig trees in z5 (Ag Can) by burying them for the winter (they cut the roots on one side and hinge them into a trench). Then they cover the trench with leaves and other insulating mulch.

[@OakKnobFarm]

@@StefanSobkowiak My former neighbor Mario does that!. And I'm only a few hours south of Montreal, FWIW ;)

[@Green.Country.Agroforestry]

There were two trees that we picked up from the ranch supply store on a whim .. the specific cultivar wasn't indicated, unfortunately, and no one at the store seems to know, either. We're in zone 7a (US), but in the Great Plains, so we get winter weather like Winnipeg, albeit a few degrees warmer. As long as those roots keep developing, I believe we'll keep them. I can always put some of the hazelnut trees that I'm layering into the same space if I absolutely have to. The trench idea is interesting - not something that I can do with the figs where they are, but worth trying for some other 'iffy' choices.

[@OakKnobFarm]

@@Green.Country.Agroforestry Cool ,thanks for teh reply Jason. I think the "Chicago Hardy" cultivar is the most cold hardy fig - so if you need to buy a new one at some point definitely look into it. Our climate here in NH is tempered a bit by the ocean (30-40 miles away from my house) so even though we're probably at a similar latitude as you we're warmer for sure.

[@scratecureuil6114]

Bonjour,bravo pour ce que vous faite :) je voudrais savoir vous prenez quoi comme type d'arbre pour un verger demi tige / scion / haute tige ?

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Demi-tige demander dans votre région ce qui est le mieux adapté à votre climat sol. Haute tige aussi. J’utilise surtout m26, m106 et semis.

[@johnytwo]

Did you try peaches or apricots from seeds? They tend to by tasty and really hardy. I am not sure about such low temperatures, though.

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Yes tried both but only peaches from seed. Grows well until we get colder than -28c then they die. Stopped trying them.

[@marieleopold1625]

Why didn't you just go with the saying; "When at first you don't succeed...TRY, TRY Again!" Enjoyed the vid and your common sense shared...thanks Stefan...God Bless you and yours!

[@StefanSobkowiak]

That summarizes it well.

[@meh4164]

Hi Stefan, is it possible to rotate sheep in your orchard?

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Yes but not all season long, just early spring and late fall. Otherwise they eat the leaves of trees and shrubs.

[@bhavens9149]

ARTICLE for you on the Origin of Apples from Archaeology mag www.archaeology.org/issues/365-features/top10/8239-kazakhstan-apple-domestication

[@user-nv3ct8yy7r]

Hello! Please tell me why you do not have KZbin subtitles so that they can be translated into Russian? For example, in this video and in the rest. People in Russia also love and are engaged in permaculture, they look and respect your work, but do not know the English language. I could help them understand your conversation in the videos, but way to translate the available subtitles, which is very sad. Thank you in advance for your reply and wish you success in your endeavors.

[@OmasteneOkno]

How many TRYING was in video? I know you counted.