This is a great time of year to look at trees with their amazing fall colors, and get some ideas on which tree (or better yet, trees) you should plant in your yard next spring (this is not the best time to plant – more on that in a bit).
And while autumn color is wonderful, my favorite trees provide spring, summer and fall feasts for the eyes – and in summer, feasts for the mouth.
The pink blossoms of peach and nectarine trees start appearing as early as February and provide a friendly reminder that warmer weather is not too far away — usually. While not as showy as true flowering varieties, your peach trees will fill up with beautiful orange (ok – peach) colored fruit that makes for fine pies, jam, pancake topping, fruit salad, dried fruit, peaches and cream and last but not least, chin-dribbling fresh consumption. Modern peach and nectarine varieties are curl-free and don’t need any sprays.
In the fall, the leaves of peach and nectarine trees turn a deep red and orange before they fall. Leave them under the tree for a lingering display of color and to help replenish the soil, and keep the weeds down (a little).
Fruit trees provide a colorful addition to fall. Credit: John Fischer
Bartlett pears — the most common backyard variety — also bloom spectacularly, and provide fruit, but their leaves go from green to brown. The winter pears — bosc, danjou, comice and others — have lovely fall color, and fruit that ripens slowly after a period of chill. We often have pears well into April by leaving them in the fridge for three months after picking. Pears are not as pest-free as peaches and nectarines, but they are less prone to bugs than the summer Bartlett, in my experience.
If you want to plant some trees next spring, fall and winter are perfect times to prepare the ground with virtually no work, and absolutely no digging.
Getting started
Head into the yard and find the spots where you want fruit trees.
Put a 4-foot circle of cardboard on the grass (or weeds — or weedy grass), and cover it with a foot of leaves. Period.
You may have to wait a bit to get leaves if you do this today, but by November, it will be easy; they grow on trees.
Do not remove the grass (or weeds — or weedy grass) before you put the cardboard down. Most of the soil’s nutrients are in that sod layer.
Over the winter, the grass and cardboard will degrade with the help of your friendly neighborhood worms, leaving behind (under the leaves) a rich, loamy soil.
Even clay soil will be better for spring planting with this treatment. I put in a row of fruit trees between my house and the neighbors’ a few years ago. What neighbors? “Oh, there they are behind the trees eating peaches.”
The trees have grown into a shady fruit oasis providing peaches (two varieties), plums, nectarines, pears (two varieties), a fig, and an apple (Honey Crisp — drool drool).
Fruit trees provide a colorful addition to fall. Credit: John Fischer
Choose curl-resistant varieties of nectarine and peach (Kriebich, Frost, Oregon Curl Free), consider winter pears Bosc, D’anjou, Comice, (Vicar of Winkfield for cooking). There are plenty of summer-ripening Barletts in town already. The plum is an Italian, but should have been a Stanley. Of course, your own tastes should dictate what you plant. Apples and pears are subject to pests — worms — the others I mentioned are not.
I always plant bare-root trees in the spring, from February to April. Do not amend the soil.
Your tree has to grow in your soil and a little rich amended hole will make the roots reluctant to move out of the easy zone and stunt the tree for life. If I must buy a potted tree, I gently wash off the soil and make sure the roots are not wrapped around in the pot — they usually are.
To plant — in February or March — just move the leaves to the side, dig a hole bigger than the roots spread, plant with the graft above the ground, and water the tree in — even if it’s pouring outside. Better, just wait for a dry day. It’s more fun, and you’ll track in less mud. (Hey, buster! Shoes off. Please!)
I stake the trees and wrap a mesh or trunk protector around the trunks so neighborhood cats won’t mark the baby tree to death with their sharp claws. Use the leftover leaves to make a nice moisture-saving, weed-reducing mulch over the roots.
First year: water twice a month; next year, once a month; then only as needed. If you don’t let the worms prep the soil this winter, you can plant by taking the sod off a three-foot circle, digging out a foot of soil, putting the sod back in the hole upside down, and adding the dirt back in to plant in. A lot of work, and the worms work for free.
Choose a reasonably sunny location, minimum six hours — more is better — plant semi-dwarf or in tight locations, columnar trees, and in as little as a year you’ll have fruit with the peaches, pies, cobblers and friends forever — “John, are the plums ready yet?”
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