Anyone know about apple trees?

[Manalto]

Jacquie, inspired by this conversation, today I picked up an 'Owari' satsuma.

[JacquieJet]

JJet, any chance the root ball has not reached out beyond its planting size and it’s not getting enough water to support its new growth.

It's possible... but I do water it fairly frequently (we just got our property professionally landscaped so everything is getting watered daily!).
Either way, it's toast. I went to a nursery today and bought a new one- a red delicious zone 4 tree- should be hardy for our zone 6 climate. Fingers crossed we'll have better luck! The good news is that it seems our veteran peach tree has turned a corner... all of a sudden, it's thriving!

[JacquieJet]

Jacquie, inspired by this conversation, today I picked up an 'Owari' satsuma.

Oh my gosh, that's incredible!! I hope you get a good harvest!! Please post pictures!!

[Willa]

Jacquie - there is a local program here that gives away saplings by donation. I got two wild crabapple trees about a month ago. One had leafed out a little - and other had buds. I watered them and cared for them in the week or so before I planted. What was very weird was that the one with buds NEVER leafed out, even though it was watered, in direct sun, etc. The branches seemed kind of brittle, and the buds started to dry out. Dr. Google was no help at all. Finally I put the dud sapling on the compost heap. I shook off the soil, and the roots seemed fine, so I have no clue what was up with this sapling that just seemed to have totally STOPPED ? There was no sign of obvious disease, bugs, rot, etc.

Have any apple tree folks out there experienced this ?

[Manalto]

I suspect the care it got - or, more likely, didn't get before it reached your hands - is the culprit in the case of the dead crabapple sapling. Plants absorb water and nutrients through a system of microscopic root hairs. Exposed to the air for even a few seconds, they die. Some plants wilt temporarily but then the root hairs rapidly regenerate and the plant recovers. If the root system was exposed to the air long enough to damage the tissue that generates root hairs, it has passed the point of no return. It can look OK for a while (a good example of this is a Christmas tree brought into a warm house with no root system at all) but without the ability to take up water and nutrients, its fate is sealed.

[phil]

I decided not to have a christmas tree but was brought one. so I stuck it in a garbage can of water. thought it might sprout roots then moved it to another part of the yard and dumped the water and didnt' refill. I can still use it next year but ill need to spray paint it green

I have plumbs. a couple came with the house. they fruited and one put out lots the last couple of years and nothing this year. they both had some sort of disease as they build this big scabby brown stuff around the branches. this year one didnt' have any leaves at all so I guess its just for the cat to climb now lol.. the other didnt' fruit much. I got a new one, a freebie with a root ball about 8" across and about 10 branches.. I plopped it in the ground and have been trying to water it but most of the leaves died, but stil it has some so I guess there is some hope it will take.

I know little about trees so im not good for advice. I have blueberries and they are doing well. I thik some fruit trees might need to be spliced? aren't mackintosh like that? I don't think those ones will grow from a seed. do they need a male to pollenate?

[Manalto]

Apples have great genetic diversity, so growing an apple from seed (a pippin) can produce varied results, often not worth eating. It's an enormous investment of time and effort to speculatively grow an apple from seed, not knowing what the result will be. (The story about Johnny Appleseed - John Chapman - usually neglects to say he planted young trees, not seeds, in his travels. America lived on hard cider in those days.) A seed-grown apple tree will also grow large - too big to pick from easily, so a scion (top) of a desirable apple of a known variety is grafted to a dwarfing rootstock to produce a conveniently-sized tree. These come in a range of semi-dwarf, dwarf and very dwarf. Apples do need a pollinator; these are chosen by time of bloom: early, mid or late-season. Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, and some other varieties are considered self-pollinating; that is, they will bear when planted singly - but they produce better when cross-pollinated. Crabapples will also pollinate apples if, of course, they're blooming at the same time.

Is your plum plumb?

[phil]

my plums are sad this year. I'm hoping I can get some new ones happy. one had three plumbs but it exploded with fruit the last couple of years and I think that was it's last attempt at trying to reproduce. I think the best would be to try to find some appropriately sized young trees at this point, unless I can cut them way back and maybe give one of the suckers a chance to take over the already established root system.

[mjt]

When we moved into our house 10 years ago, there were 3 large crabapple trees in the side yard. One was in really rough shape and we took it down during our initial landscaping work. The other two weren't too bad, but they were ~30 feet tall and provided a decent screen from the apartment building across the street. Sadly, they got taken out by the large oak that fell on them last summer...

During our original landscaping binge we added two new crabapples near the driveway. One is a "PrairieFire", but I don't recall the other. They've been doing really well, though oddly didn't really flower this spring. Usually they are both stunning when they are covered in blossoms and the PrairieFire holds its fruit well into the winter.

To replace the original crabapples in the side yard, last fall I planted a couple of dwarf apple trees (Honey Crisp and Sweet Sixteen) and a self fertile semi-dwarf Polly Peach. The peach has explosive leaf growth this year, but didn't really flower much in the spring. The two apples are doing well except for the Japanese Beetles (plucking them off by hand twice a day into a bucket of soapy water seems to be keeping them in check so far...). As a pollination experiment I let them set fruit but thinned down to perhaps 4-6 apples on each tree. So far so good.

[phil]

I had some sort of crabapple right in front of my house. It was old and unkept and ugly and I couldn't eat the fruit so I cut it down. Its been trying to re-grow for a long time. finally I think this year it gave up. I figured if I just wait a while I can dig the tangly mess of roots out. right in front of it I stuck a lilac but I have two other lilacs and they want to grow more from suckers.

one thing doing well , because I'm neglecting the watering is sage. I'm thinking of planting the sage under the lilac. I think I have some lavender too. My aim is to change the front yard around so I don't need to water much. the city modified it and put a wood wall with lots of gravel so I really cant' saturate the soil. I've been trying to get clover growing rather than grass. . It's taking but this year I opted to not cut it and just let it try to fill in because last year I mowed my clover and it got very sad. meanwhile my neighbors probably really hate me because it looks unkept. It is but I'm too busy with the roof to care much. Ive been watering a little bit and threw more clover seed to try to get it to take and the weather is turning to cloud so with some time off I might be able to get sprouts happening. all I've been doing is going out and yanking any obviously bad weeds. I know the clover can take being a bit dry and return which is what I want. little by little the tall rough grasses seem to get in there and I just try to yank them. Out back I have a few flower plants that I can't name so maybe I am just tempering them and I'll nurse the survivors back. anything not very hearty can't live under my black thumb. I need ones that are easy to maintain without a lot of fuss. I think the neighbors kind of understand as they do see me doing productive stuff, just not a lot of gardening.