Choose the Perfect Fruit Tree at the Nursery: Essential Tips (w/ Tom Spellman)

Are you looking to choose the perfect fruit tree for your garden? How do you choose the best Fuji apple tree from among DOZENS of Fuji apples at the nursery? Look no further! I’m joined by fruit tree expert, Tom Spellman, as he guides you through the process of selecting the best fruit tree at the nursery. Learn how to assess a tree’s size, shape, structure and condition when shopping for your ideal variety. Plus, get tips on planting and caring for your new tree that will help ensure a successful harvest. With Tom’s expert advice, choosing the perfect fruit tree is easy!

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My Latest Video:

00:00 Intro
00:57 Evaluating Fruit Tree Size, Shape, and Intended Pruning
02:28 Specific things to look for in a fruit tree
03:49 Rootstock and Why it Matters
04:24 Other Considerations In a Fruit Tree
05:21 Apple Experiment: Can You REALLY Grow High Chill Apples in Warm Climate?

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cameron@thebusygardener.com

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Cameron: Do you find yourself at the nursery to buy a fruit tree, maybe like an apple tree, and then you find the kind of apple that you want, but there are 30 of that kind of Apple. How are you supposed to know which one of those

To buy today I’ve got a very special guest who’s going to walk you through how to decide on the best kind of fruit tree for your environment, your backyard, let’s get busy. Stay tuned to the end of the video where Tom is going to share some surprising

Results of an experiment they did planting apples in a warm weather climate like Southern California. I’m joined here with Tom Spellman. Good to see you, Tom Cameron, good to be with you fruit tree enthusiast and very experienced, I’m really grateful for your for your knowledge, it’s helped me

Over the years a whole lot, you’ve got something to talk through today, Tom Spellman: that was shipped last January planted up in this container and grown on for one season. But at that time, it was topped here at about 40

Inches, and the structure was allowed to develop low. So this is a great example of where you want to start with a backyard orchard tree. I’m not necessarily looking for the tallest. But I’m looking for something with a nice

Bud union, a nice straight trunk and low branching so I can develop a low fruiting structure. So on this tree, I could do whatever I want, it’d be a great specimen to put on a trellis. If I want to do espalier on this one, I could

Even just do it as a casual espalier and not put it on any kind of structure just cut the growth that goes out into the the area where I don’t want and allow the growth to develop the areas where I do absolutely, I could make it shorter,

I could come down literally by 50% and just use that lower structure and just grow a low fruiting bush out of it. Or I can develop a higher head structure. So this is nursery pruning, if they were to take this tree in the nursery and they

Were to cut it back to 18 inches. Nobody wants to buy that tree. They don’t want to pay the price for it because it’s there thinking well three fourths of the tree is gone. Yeah, even though that’s what’s going to give you that nice low

Structure. But this is a this is a very well developed, nursery grown tree that is acceptable in size and acceptable in structure to anybody that would want to buy it. So this is a great place to start. This is a great tree to look for.

Cameron: Isn’t part of this because it’s got so much growth going all the way up. You have a lot of options absolute wanting to prune these off and go for not quite as central leader, you’d have to develop a new one. But you’ve got

Options. You can start with a higher canopy. You have lower canopy if you want to cut it lower. What are the things should people be looking for though, when they’re trying to determine which tree to buy? Maybe you know, the leaves look bad or Well, you know, sometimes things get stressed when

They’re sitting in a nursery. The Tom Spellman: main thing to look for really on a on a young nursery tree like this, is make sure there’s no sunburn, make sure that trunk is clean. You don’t want scarring, you don’t want sunburn, this this look at that nice bark. It’s

Uniform all the way up. It has a nice, even color. So this has been protected. So you want to make sure when you plant that out to the landscape that you also whitewash that trunk so that you’re not exposing it to sunburn in your landscape

Right away. And you want to just make sure that the bud union is exposed and above the soil level which this one is it’s right there where it belongs don’t only pay attention to the cultivar itself. This tree has two tags on it.

The first one tells you that it’s red Fuji apple gives you some of the attributes of the variety. The second one is a root stock tag it tells you what root stock this tree is buttered onto. And this is on Molly’s 111 which

Is a very very diverse apple rootstock it’s probably the most popular apple rootstock in the world does Cameron: this clarify there are different kinds of root stocks that are adapted for two different kinds of conditions inside the ground the roots

The top of the tree is grafted on to they’ve developed these root stocks that are adaptable to certain types of soil or certain types of conditions. So ideally, you’re going to get the type of root stock that works best for the type of soil that you have. Absolutely.

Tom Spellman: Now this is a very diverse root system it’ll take a heavy soil it’ll take a sandy soil, it’s self supporting to the variety it doesn’t need to be staked, it’s resistant to will the apple leaf and it’s resistant

To suckering so it has all the attributes that you would want to grow a really nice backyard apple tree Cameron: so I’m what are the other things people should be looking for in a tree that they’re buying from a nursery so I

Tom Spellman: want a nice straight trunk I want clean bark. And I want a nice low developed structure like this that I can train into a nice low brand specimen in my landscape. If Cameron: you’re seeing some browning on some leaves this is this is kind of

Fairly typical stuff. This is the rest of their leaves the rest of the canopy looks good. Tom Spellman: Oh absolutely. This Cameron: is not anything to really worry about. This would dissuade you from this. Tom Spellman: No not at all. In fact, you know in another month all these

Leaves are going to turn yellow and fall off. Depending on what time of year you’re buying the tree it may or may not even have foliage on it. Yeah, so but this is a good time to look at how that growth developed over the summer. And

How this tree you know over summered in the container. And this Cameron: is gorgeous. I know exactly where this is gonna go, it’s gonna go right next to our pink lady Apple over there, we’re gonna get cross pollinated with some of the others that we’ve got around Good, good.

Tom Spellman: Yeah, well, a lot of people that have watched some of my videos in the past have seen the videos of the Irvine, South Coast Research and Extension Center, we did an apple trial, it was about a 10 year trial, and we

Grew 30 different varieties of high chill apple in Irvine, California, a very coastal condition, a very low chill condition. And we did it to kind of disprove the theory that these varieties of apples needed between 511 100 chill hours Cameron: and chill hours or where it’s under a certain temperature that helps

The buds to develop shell hours are Tom Spellman: basically accumulated from November one until January 31. And they’re thought to be hours between freezing 32 and 50 degrees. So normally, at the Irvine Field Station, they’ll get anywhere from 100 to 200 chill hours in

A season. And these were all varieties that were required between 511 100. Cameron: And that’s in order not for the tree to survive it in order for the buds to develop in for it to rely on the Tom Spellman: fruit for the tree to reliably fruit. We planned 30 different

Trial varieties, we had a good quality fruit on 29. And I would say exceptionally good sets and good quality fruit on probably 10 or 12. So this was one of my favorites in that trial. This is red Fuji apple or what they call co

Fuji two, and it’s a variety developed from the original Fuji strain that has a little darker red color. So it was more acceptable market variety, but also in our taste tests. It’s always scored higher than the original Fuji. So it’s

Been one of my favorite varieties for many years. I know you didn’t have one in your collection. So I wanted to give one to you. This Cameron: is fantastic. What questions do you have? Put those in the comments below and we’ll be able to answer those questions. I’ll be fielding those I’m

Going to be putting a link right here for you to click on for other videos that I’m doing with Tom so that way you can get up to speed on all the different things we’ve done with fruit trees, Tom and providing his insight on what we’re

Doing things that you ought to be doing as well. And whether you got one apple tree that you’re considering to plant or 500 Till next time, stay busy.