Starting Your Own Fruit Trees

Thomas Ogren I flat out love growing fruit trees and have been crazy about them all my life. Or at least, as much of my life as I can remember. Actually, very first thing I can clearly recall involved fruit trees. I was about three, possibly four years old. It was a warm, lazy spring weekend and my older sisters were gone somewhere with my mom, but my dad was home, working in garage. I wasn’t allowed to cross street by myself, but down block, across street, was a beautiful pineapple guava tree growing in middle of some grouchy old man’s lawn. The tree had a huge crop of large, green, totally delicious fruit, but owner wouldn’t let any of us kids pick guavas from his tree, much less climb it. He claimed that we would break branches. He would however let us have fruit that fell on ground, but these guavas were generally too soft and mushy. That day I walked down street by all by myself, seeing no adults or even any other kids around. I looked at that tree and dashed across street. The old man was nowhere around and I climbed up his guava tree and started stuffing big, fat guavas in all my pockets. I picked as many as my pockets could hold and climbing back down I did indeed break a few small branches. Looking both ways (of course!) I ran back across street with my loot. Back at home I found my dad still in garage and I showed him my stash, expecting him to yell at me for crossing street. But dad never did make connection and thus my first episode of crime was all in all, a total success. Some fifty years later I now have five guava trees growing in my own yard, all grown from seed. I also have many other fruit trees, all of them homegrown ones.

Fruit From Cuttings Some fruit is so easy to propagate I always wonder why everyone doesn’t try it. Grapes, figs, mulberries, and pomegranates are all easy to grow from directly-stuck cuttings. I cut off a piece of dormant wood, 12-18 inches long, and I bury almost all of it in ground where I want it to grow. I leave at least one good bud above ground. Sometimes to insure a better take, I’ll stick five or six such cuttings in same spot. If they all grow, then next winter I dig up extra ones and give them to friends. I use cutting wood that grew last year and find that wood that is about pencil thickness or somewhat thicker roots best. I recently accidentally discovered a way to get plum wood to root for me. I used a long whip of plum branch (dormant wood) as a stake in a one gallon pot of some fancy gold heart ivy. To my surprise plum wood rooted and started to grow next spring. I now do this on purpose, using plum wood that is from last year’s vigorous growth. I select plum whips 2 to 3 foot long, with no branching on them, and stick each one all way down into center of a gallon pot of some well-rooted perennial flowers or herbs. A surprising number of these plums grow, and since they are "on their own root,” they don’t need to be budded or grafted. Try it.

Thomas Ogren