Orchard roundup

For the curious – we have a roundup of the unidentified tree posts.  The orchard contains

• 5 apples,
• 2 aronia berry bushes,
• 9 blueberries,
• 4 cherries,
• 2 cornelian cherries (edible dogwood),
• a few native elderberries,
• 4 fig trees,
• 1 peach,
• 3 pears,
• 3 plums,
• 1 red currant,
• 1 gooseberry, and
• a wolfberry bush.

One bush identified must come out – autumn olive or goumi.  There are also invasive (though now heavily pruned, area significantly reduced, and under control) blackberries, thornless blackberries, and marionberries.  There are wild black raspberries, huckleberries, and manzanita.  A couple of Shuksan strawberries (I found the label) have survived beneath a layer of bracken fern.  A year ago, on my very first visit, I purchased a rhubarb plant at the local grocery store.  That has survived it’s first year of relative neglect.  We are planting two olive trees (purchased from a nursery a couple of weeks ago) and a walnut tree (from my grandmother.)

There are two trees/rootstock still unidentified.  We have 7 trees blooming this year (largely the cherry trees), so we can watch to see what fruits come.  The lonely blooming apple tree will probably not set fruit this year, as we didn’t identify it as an apple tree in time to borrow a couple of blooming branches from a neighbor for pollination (the closest apple tree is about 2 miles down the road.)  We might try to ‘stool’ or mound layer the peach rootstock this coming dormant season in order to get rootstock for at least 3 or 4 peach trees.

Still lots more cleaning and work to do, but definitely a valuable baseline has now been established.  Thanks, everyone, for your help with the identifications!