Fruiting Plants I Regret Spending Money On
I would have had an even more productive garden if I had done a little more homework early on.
Cliff notes:
-Some fruiting plants are not suited to our region very well at all despite being commonly grown throughout the rest of the country. Cherries, peaches, nectarines and apricots in particular. Apples have significant problems too (detailed post coming soon)
-Variety Selection: pest and disease pressure along with heat/moisture tolerance is regionally specific, not necessarily USDA zone specific.
-It’s best to verify that what you want to grow has actually worked for other gardeners in your region.
-Taste to make sure you like the flavor whenever possible. Many of these obscure plants taste awful.
When I first moved to my property, many of my plantings were fruit trees. I did not know that I should select varieties for disease resistance, rootstock selection for size control, and that some kinds just aren’t suited to the Willamette Valley without substantial spraying regimens. I also went through a phase of seeking out obscure fruits as well, most of which were duds.
Although I had a lot of success, many times I wish I had done more homework. To be fair, much of this information wasn’t readily available to me to make better choices. I hope I can save you some frustration in your garden.
Fruiting plants I’ve tried, and subsequently removed:
Akebias: grow very well here, but as a fruit plant the flavor sucks.
Almond: a self-fertile variety. Died very quickly, and I learned that almonds are incredibly disease prone in our area so haven’t tried again.
Apples: the first apples I grew were not regionally appropriate, and I knew nothing about size control with rootstocks. They grew into huge monsters, where I could not reach the fruits for pest control. I’ve since done my homework and replanted, and will report back.
Apricots are a poor choice - because they bloom extremely early and the fruits are usually killed by frost. There’s only one kind that can bloom and set fruit in our region, but then there are severe disease issues to contend with.
Arctic raspberries: a fruiting ground cover, these died pretty quickly for me. I’ll try again if I hear success stories in our region.
Cherries: I LOVE cherries and wish they work here. Sadly, my trees became giant bird feeders. Cherry rootstock doesn’t control very well for size like it does with apples. Upon further reading, I learned that cherries in Western Oregon are terribly disease prone. Those that are slightly disease resistant tend to have flavor that isn’t great, (which I verified by tasting at u-pick orchards). Evidently sour cherries are easier to grow, but my emphasis is on finding those fruits that don’t require cooking into sugary desserts, so haven’t tried them. Maybe some day.
Chilean guava: the variegated struggled in my garden for several years, then died. The non-variegated was wimpy, so I pulled it. Neither ever flowered.
Cornelian Cherry: the flavor is downright awful, so only grow them if you plan on spending all that time processing and pitting them into some kind of jelly. Or if you’re like me, you can still grow them because they are particularly pretty and the birds like them.
Cranberries grew, but never flowered and fruited, so I pulled them.
Figs: I have learned how to have success with appropriate variety selection. There are many that don’t do well here.
Goji: struggled to grow, so I ripped it out to make space for something else.
Grapes: I did not realize that there are many kinds that don’t ripen well here (sour grapes are awful), or are incredibly disease prone. I have subsequently had major success with Swenson Red, and trialing other varieties. A post on the best varieties for the valley is forthcoming.
Honeyberries: yield very little and taste awful! Some people like them for making into preserves, with few exceptions I personally prefer my fruits to taste good fresh.
Japanese wineberries: grew fine for me and they are super pretty. But they are kind of seedy, without much flavor, yield is low.
Jujubes: croaked pretty quickly for me. Not sure what I did wrong - I suspect from further reading that they require an incredible amount of heat that I don’t have.
Kiwis and kiwiberries are a little more complicated than I imagined. Initially, I went out and bought a male and female, not knowing that there are several kinds of kiwis and they must match. Once I learned this, I ripped out the male fuzzy kiwi I had and replaced with a male kolomikta to match my female. These are a hardy “arctic” kiwis. Eventually the vine did produce fruit, but the fruit is tiny. Think the size of a medium blueberry. They ripened sporadically over several weeks, giving a tiny nibble every few days. And the flavor is pretty boring. Definitely not worth the space that two vines take up.
The other hardy kiwi I tried - twice - was Issai, which is self-fertile. Unfortunately for me, it croaked both times. In reading further about this cultivar, it seems to be more susceptible to phytophthora root rot. It showed symptoms right around the same time as my raspberries when they got in infected so that might have been what did them in.
People do have success with fuzzy kiwis if they have enough heat, along with the “arguta” kiwiberries in our region. I may give the argutas a shot again at some point, but I have since seen the size of their mature trunks. They require massive support which has given me pause. Think several times the size of old grape vines.
Lingonberries grow well, but they are super small and fiddly. Super annoying. I imagine it would take like an hour to pick a cup. They are sour, and taste like cranberries. If I were to go for something sour only to sweeten, I’d give sour cherries a shot.
Nanking cherries I bought from a regional nursery, so I assumed they’d do well here. They most often molded. And the fruits I did get to ripen were tiny and tart. I asked the regional nursery I bought them from if I should keep giving them a try, and they admitted they didn’t know anyone in our region growing them and having success. In our region, if you want a sour cherry, look for disease resistant sour cherries.
Olive: I planted Arbequina. It died fairly quickly. I learned after the fact that I don’t have the right site for it - they really want all-day sun.
Peach/nectarine: have 2 major problems in our climate.
1. Peach leaf curl. You can select varieties that are curl resistant, but their flavor is kind of bland. I took my curl-free peach out because of this. I also have a newer Black Boy peach, which is supposed to be resistant, but so far the flavor sucks and it has some kind of pest that even the extension office can’t seem to identify. It may be that the tree is just too young to give good fruit. I also trialed two very dwarfing peach and nectarine trees - both succumbed within the first year presumably from curl as they were badly infected.
2. Bacterial canker. this is a disease that infects nearly all peach and nectarine trees in our climate. Evidently the control is timely anti-fungal sprays which are difficult for the home grower to figure out how to deliver correctly. My Hardired nectarine tree produces absolutely delicious fruit, but is succumbing to canker. These turkey tails mushrooms invaded after the tunk became infected with cankers.
Pomegranate: supposedly hardly. I didn’t spend much time on this one as I as I started to catch on that I was duped into buying things that wouldn’t do well here and pulled it pretty quick.
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What have your experiences been like growing these plants?
Thank you for the article. Here's my experience with growing some of these in Tigard.
Chilean guava: it needs full sun to flower, the berries are very tasty, ripening around Thanksgiving. It needs protection from super cold spells and freezing rain. The damage is not complete but enough to prevent it from blooming that year. It's a keeper for me. It also does well in pots. Very shallow root system.
Figs: I grow close to 40 varieties, super easy, in pots. I have 4 trees in ground. Last year most of them produced twice which is unusual for us here. Totally worth growing.
Banking cherry: I have two varieties, red and yellow. There're about to bloom for the first time. The red one I've grown it from a seed. They need cross pollination, hopefully they'll do well.
Jujube: easy to grow. I'm sorry for your tree. My variety is called Honey Jar. Very productive and self pollinating. Delicious fruit mid fall.
Honyberries: I have three bushes. They didn't produce much yet but I keep moving them around. They tend to bloom too early for pollinators. I don't have much experience with the taste though.
Grapes: it depends a lot on what varieties you grow. My Interlaken is an absolute winner. No diseases, highly productive. Too bad I cannot share a picture with you. I have about ten varieties including a muscadine which hasn't produced anything yet. Grapes are generally speaking easy to grow in Oregon, but stay away from European varieties. My favorite is Sweet Seduction.
I read that you were considering trying sour cherry, me too. I've narrowed down the varieties to Montmorency and Northstar. Some nursery websites say Montmorency grows in zone 3-7 and we're zone 8 or 9. Northstar grows in zone 8 and seems to be a smaller tree. People really like the flavor of Montmorency but I haven't heard much about Northstar. I'm very interested in knowing which variety is more resistant to bacteria canker. Rootstocks play a role too, and Colt seems to be more resistant to Gisela. I'm looking forward to your cherry/sour cherry research! If you're interested maybe we can pick a sour cherry variety together :)