Below is the data for 32 cultivars as recorded on March 13, 2024
Below is the data for 32 cultivars as recorded on March 13, 2024
This posts describes the cuttings sale on reallygoodplants.com in March of 2024.
The sale will open at 6 PM PST on March 1.
1. All deciduous cuttings and scions were precut while dormant and stored at 40°F.
2. The evergreen species will be cut to order. The wood of white sapote, cherimoya, rose apple, and avocado do not store for a long time. These should be used in under a week or two after receiving.
3. Some cultivars are not linked to descriptions. There are various reasons for this. Some are easily searchable on the web, like many apples, plums, peaches, a couple of Opuntias, etc. And the others are novel in circulation, and we have not yet evaluated them in detail. These are for gardeners looking for new gerplasm to test in their conditions.
4. Most of the material offered here should be grafted, however, there are some accessions that could be rooted. We successfully rooted all Elaeagnus species, Kei Apples, sour cherry PV Hybrid #1, Adara plum, rose apple, and many mulberries. Here is the post on mulberry rooting abilities you may want to check. If you plan on rooting some material, I would still recommend grafting a piece for a backup. This time we also offer the cuttings of Osage orange, which are typical rootstock for Che. These will root and, will grow fast, and can be grafted with Che the following year.
All pomegranates root fine. If you want to graft them, make sure to graft onto strong young shoots. More about grafting in this post.
All Opuntia pads, as well as grapes will root.
5. The length and diameter of the cuttings will depend on the species. We will supply at least 6 inch long cuttings with at least 3 buds. A 6 inch long apricot scion can have up to 20 buds, while some vigorous mulberries might have 6-8 inch long internodes. On average, mulberry cuttings will be longer than avocado, apricots, and feijoa. Some mulberries grow very thick shoots. If you are planning on getting the Himalayan types like Naples, Steve Murray, etc, these may be up to 1 inch in diameter and will require established rootstocks to graft onto, or prepare yourself for chip budding your smaller rootstocks.
This is the most late fruiting cultivar for me in Davis. The tree is very vigorous and fast growing. The fruits are medium in size, excellent tasting. The flavor has caramel notes in it, they are very sweet and creamy, the skin is edible. The fruits in the pictures below were harvested on February 9, 2024.
The scions are usually available during our spring sale at reallygoodplants.com
Orion peach
Katy apricot
This post describes the hybrid selections of herbaceous hibiscus created by Fedor Rusanov.
Fedor Rusanov (1895 -1979) was the founder of Tashkent Botanical Garden in Uzbekistan. He had a long and successful career as a botanist and plant breeder. Sometime around 1940s-50s he created the hybrids of hibiscus which are called by his name now. He was working with three American species, Нibiscus coccineus, Н. moscheutos, and Н. militaris. After multistep crosses he ended up with selections which are very frost hardy, vigorous and have large flowers. These hybrids can grow to 2.5 - 3 meters (7-10 feet) in one season producing an inch or more thick stems. However, they will go fully dormant for winter, and all above ground parts will die back. The following spring they will regrow from the roots. The roots are very thick rhizomes similar in the structure to the vigorous peony roots. These plants need space, sun, and supplementary water in California. They are also extremely heat tolerant and will bloom over the summer, fall, and until the frosts.
In my childhood I used to walk through the grounds of Samarkand College of Agriculture which had them planted in masses. I perceived them as just something given, and had no idea that someone worked for years to create these hybrids. I also had one in the backyard of my grandmother. That plant produced very large red flowers.
I started growing these from seeds a few years back and had a number of seedlings with pink, white, and red flowers. I preserved a selection with very large pink flowers which should segregate into multiple colors. I just started a number of seeds and hope to select other colors. I also grow multiple clones of this pink selection, as it is very easy to create new plants from the early summer shoots. They root in a couple of weeks. Below are the pictures of my pink selection.
These are very open plants and combine very well with other plantings, see image below.Chitalpa tashkentensis is a popular flowering and shade tree. It is wide-spread across California and can be found in most landscaping nurseries.
The reason I decided to write about it is that there is a very limited and often erroneous information about this tree (on the English speaking web). I myself got this tree as a 5-6 ft whip in 2001 because I was looking for a flowering tree with fast decomposing leaves. Now, over 20 years later it is a well developed tree that provides light shade for my front yard plants. Below are the day and night pictures from June of 2023.
This post describes a pretty uncommon, but a wonderful and an easy-to-grow fruit. The Che fruit (Cudrania tricuspidata, Maclura tricuspidata) originates from China, but not even every Chinese will know it. However, the various parts of this tree are used for centuries in the traditional Eastern medicine. This paper summarizes the traditional uses, the chemical compounds isolated from this tree and their pharmacological activities.
Majority of people who tasted this fruit, never seen a selection producing the fruits as large as the cultivar Oregon Exotics. This particular accession was introduced by Jerome Black many years ago and was originally distributed through his (now defunct) nursery Oregon Exotics. The fruits are wonderfully sweet berry ripening in November. I started growing this accession about 7-8 years ago, and had my first harvest in 2018. The first time I described these fruits in this post in November of 2020.
My new Che trees in the new orchard turned out to be great producers just after one year in the ground. I have not weighed the harvest of 2023, but my estimate is that we picked close to 20 pounds from two small female trees. These are surrounded by two male trees and I suspect that pollinated fruits hold better and definitely grow larger.
The leaves on the male trees look abnormally rolled in, and this seems to be typical for this male accession.
The male trees grow more vigorously and taller than the female trees. I posted a video on how different the foliage looks like on male vs female trees:
https://youtube.com/shorts/C5_TvOxZ5ZA?si=rw3KBuHbN95yIm4X
The birds started damaging the fruits in early October, and by October 15 we put the tulle net over the trees to save the harvest. These berries need to be fully ripe before harvesting, and the netting allowed us to harvest the ripe undamaged fruits. Below is the link to a video from mid October with the netting structure.
https://youtube.com/shorts/tetVJQXG7EA?si=ED49_QUX7vbjT8Yf
Here in the Sacramento Valley, the fruit are getting ready in November. This year I harvested most of the fruits on November 17 and November 18, and the very last batch was harvested on November 25. In the picture below are the Che fruits along with the very last figs from November 25.
The link below points to my last Che tasting video taken in the orchard on November 18:Below is the data for 32 cultivars as recorded on March 13, 2024 Some additional cultivars in the orchard might show some flowering buds l...