Backyard fruit trees (advice and experience?)
 

Looking at planting a couple of fruit trees in my backwyard and was wondering if any of you have an advice or two. What are the dos and don'ts? What do you have planted sucessfully and unsecessfuly? Any recommendations for calgary?

I found this list and i cant decide on what to get.

https://www.calgaryplants.com/collec...straint=edible

Fruit trees.
 

I have a Fall Red Apple it took a few years to get going properly but doing good now,though I'm not really liking the taste as they seem to be dry,which I'm sure someone else would like,I also have a Colette that I don't see on your list it's my favorite it's always grown a fair amount of apples and are delicious in the fall.have an Evans Cheery tree that is 4 years old and and every year it produces more fruit,they are a bit tart but get as big any store bought cheery,all the ones it's produced so far I've eaten right of the tree.gooseberries and black currants grow well in Alberta as well,abundant fruit.

Have a 5 variety apple tree. Great.

Have a Evan cherry. Tasty but not growing great yet.

Saskatoons are great.

Grapes are great.

Apples, cherries both Evans or Nanking grow well, plums can produce. Of course raspberry’s are good although have containment in mind, strawberries are always good to have, Saskatoons are good, blueberries seem to be temperamental, I’ve had them die several times and require constant maintenance.

I planted a Norkent last year up here in Fort Mac. It looked pretty rough from may through the whole summer but finally looked like it set it’s roots in the fall. I guess i’ll Find out in a couple months now if it survived the winter. My good buddy has the Heyer#12 on your list and I really like that apple. It’s ready in mid August but only has a big yield every other year but doesn’t keep long .He also has a Minnesota 447 and that’s by far my favorite apple I ever tried, it has big yields every year and if store well keeps well into January . Follow any instructions on how to plant it from who ever you buy it from .

We have 6 apple trees, bought them in 2's over 3 years, first trees are 4 years old now, last fall was the first apples, now hope they all live to give me 4 trees producing apples this fall, don't know the name of the apples, but they were all red variety

Leave the cherries on the tree until first frost, they'll get nice and sweet and lose the tartness, as for the Apple tree, if you don't like the fruit, graft it with one you do like.

For Apples: Norland, Goodland, Saskatchewan, Honey Crisp

For Cherries: Northstar, Evans, Nanking

For Berries: Saskatoon, HONEY BERRY, Fall Gold Raspberry, Gojji Berry.

I have all of the above on the go at the Lake or at home.

If you just want a pile of crabapples, just go get a Red Rescue and deal with dead grass and hornets all August long. But you will get a huge pile of apples.

Drewski

I read an article in a magazine once (can't remember the mag) a guy grafted 40 different varieties of fruit on 1 tree!

U of S has done a great job with cold hardy fruit trees. Some of the cherries, haskaps, and other fruit is amazing. I have had great plumb and apples east of Edmonton. We have been on a new piece of land for about 5 years and have planted a mix of cold hardy fruit and berries. Haskap, apples plumbs Cherie's, hazelnuts, raspberries, strawberries, Saskatoon's. It hasent really been long enough to tell what's going to do best, but if you follow the temp zone for your area, and prep your soil you should be good.
http://www.fruit.usask.ca/dwarfsourcherries.html
http://www.fruit.usask.ca

Brad

I have a Honey crisp apple. Second year in the ground it was loaded beyond belief. I counted 50 or more fairly large apples. Third year it didn't even have one flower bud. Is this a problem I have to worry about ? Never gonna fruit again or did it just take a rest because of amount of apples on it that one year.

Carmine Jewel or other varieties of cherry from Bob Bors at the U of S. Superb sour cherries that make great jelly to accompany game.

Lots of apple trees produce bi-annually

I have a pear tree, small pears but tasty. Had it four years, lots of flowers, never produced due to years of late spring cold. Last year lots of pears, weather was finally right and the flowers never froze.

Also have Evans cherry, Saskatoons, Nanking, apple tree with 5 grafts, cranberry. Like them all.

I have three apple trees, two plums, two pears, and one cherry tree. The apples produced great for a couple of years, but then this summer they caught a disease, and I won't know until spring if they will survive. The plums and pears have not produced fruit yet, but I am hopeful for this year. The cherry was planted late last year, and it had some fruit, so it should produce this year.

Fruit rarely bears heavily two years in a row.

Here, in Saskatoon, we have the added complication that pollinators will not be around if the bloom happens during a cold snap. If that happens the cherry crop is poor and the Saskatoons are non-existent.

Having said that, the cherries are now so widespread that there is a surplus of cherries here for the asking, even in a low fruiting year.

My hunting partner's little trees are about 3 1/2 foot high in their third year. He has 20 plus pounds of cherries in the freezer to juice for jelly.

I picked two meat lugs of cherries at another friend's place last year, perhaps 50 pounds, so there is still plenty in the freezer for pies.

I have not had a fresh eating apple that I really liked on the Prairies, but I freeze sacks of pie apples, cut in wedges, to make apple crisp through the year.

If someone knows a crisp, juicy and sweet eating apple variety for the Prairies I would like to know about it.

For a sweet, crisp apple, try the Honeycrisp or the Goodland. Norland is a soft apple, and even though it is shaped like a Red Delicious, it is soft.

For the apples, they "pulse". But if you have a few varieties, they seem to alternate if they are planted year after year so that there is different sizes growing and one tree or the other will have a good year, As Long As the Spring is Dry and WARM. No bees, no fruit.

As for the pears, never seen one that was good Edmonton and north, but plums seem to work! Problem is a lot of plum trees have pretty wicked spikes that can really hurt if you are not careful. Some plums are so sour that you pull your anus through your tonsils on the first bite, so I have not been impressed to date.

Drewski

When I lived in Acme, I had a plum and a pear in addition to a few different types of apples/crab apples. Try the plum and the pear.

Fruit trees
 

No matter what you plant you will have lots of birds around and if you really want the fruit you will have to net everything. The robins like to take a bite out of each apple although they usually leave enough for me. As for the Saskatoon they get about 90% of them. I could net them but I like the birds around. I get a couple of feeds a year. I have lots of bird feeders so it is only the robins that do damage.

Don't overlook another great addition to the orchard. Beaked hazelnut. The tree is native to Alberta. Nice looking and you can harvest the nuts. A person used to be able to get 10 plants for planting from crown land with a 10 dollar permit. Otherwise, some greenhouses sell the plants. Pricey though.

I added 7 of the various UofS Cherries last year they grew nice last year but no berries. I also have some haskap berries and I finally got some berries off of those when I moved them into my back yard stopping the Jack rabbits from eating them flat. Haskap are very tasty, and hearty, but they are more of a tall bush.

Anything from that U of S program is likely a winner at least from a survival point of view.

I made an Evans cherry wheat beer this past fall it's fantastic.

I have a small vegetable patch , I just don't know if I will convert it to raspberries or strawberries

The nice thing about the U of S stuff is most of it you can propagate from the seeds.

Sea-buckthorn makes a nice shrub row.

Rarely get a harvest of huksap berries before the birds do.
The cedar waxwings clear them out before they’re ripe.
*****s.

What methods for grafting has anyone had good success with? I’m going to try it next spring. I planted a new parkland Apple last year and it looks like it’s doing great. It’s ready to bloom any day now and it looks like the neighbors is ready to go to. Lots of flowers to so hopefully I get a nice first crop.

Going heavy on haskaap this year. Rebranded to "honeyberry" for easier marketing. I will be covering my Saskatoon's this winter as the moose ate nearly all of my hundred bushes to 6' sticks.

There are some real nice pear varieties you can grow here in Calgary, I feel more people should grow them. Beautiful flowers in the spring and delicious fruit in the fall.

Pears and plums at our local greenhouse need to plant two for fertilizing.

Hopa crabapple tree in the backyard had an incredible amount of bloom and fruit last year but this year not a single flower, getting old or maybe tired out from last year? Usually has a solid bloom and fruit every year.

Planted a Pembina Plum tree four years ago. Took very well produces tons of plums, comparable to store bought prune plums.

Very happy with it