The Great Fruit Update of 2025
When I was starting out gardening at 5000′, all of the most interesting blogs stopped giving updates after the first year or two. They would plant the fruit trees and berries that I was interested in and then *poof* you’d never hear if they survived or produced or tasted awful or the blogger DIED (why not suspect the worst)…
Well, I apologize, it has been a minute since there was a blog update. I am still alive, as are most of my fruit trees and 70% of my berries. There have been some failures! No hazelnuts have survived. But we have had so many successful plantings that I can’t wait to give an official update. We’re going to do this list-style, by planting date.
2015 (Timber Garden Year 1)
Evans Bali pie cherry – planted 5/12/15, self-fertile, hardy -40F. My god this tree is a workhorse. From the time we planted it, it has produced loads of gorgeous bright red cherries. The tree needs very little pruning or shaping. Evans Bali are an amarelle cherry…red skins but yellow flesh…and they ripen consistently in August here in McCall (top cherry on the right). They don’t flower as early as sweet cherries, so they aren’t damaged by late frosts. They really are the most reliable fruit tree we have. If you like pie cherries. And if you net them against the birds, because boy are they a stunning bright red that calls to birds like a little fruit siren.
Northstar pie cherry (Mahaleb rootstock, semi-standard) – planted 5/12/15, self-fertile, natural dwarf. This tree is so cute, it tops out between 9 and 11 feet. If you wonder where the cherry-flavored Jolly Rancher came from, it is the Northstar pie cherry. This morello variety (dark skin, dark red flesh, bottom cherry above) can be sweet for a pie cherry, and makes incredible sauces and pies. It produces consistently in July, about 1 month before the Evans Bali cherry. Again, an incredibly reliable producer that needs little to no pruning.
Honeycrisp apple (Bud 9 rootstock, dwarf) – In the spring of 2016 we discovered this poor guy was a victim of winter mice. They had completely ringed the cambium of the tree about 12″ above the ground. We dug it out to replace it with a new Honeycrisp tree, and the roots were so impressive we planted it out by our chicken coop. It sent up a central leader and you’d never even know it was once a poor stump. Unfortunately we always forget about it, so it gets watered only sometimes it’s kind of in the shade and it produces apples and we don’t know until the leaves fall off. See Honeycrisp #2 for a flavor report. (planted 5/12/15, mid-season blooming)
Honeygold apple (M7 rootstock, semidwarf) – This is one of our largest trees, vigorous and healthy! It is always trying to grow into the path, and maybe take over the greenhouse. The Honeygold produces small-to-medium sweet-tart apples. Very tasty! They store for several months in the garage. Honeygold and Honeycrisp both tend to bear every other year, but I think the Honeygold has produced most years. They pollinate each other. (planted 5/12/15, mid-season blooming)
LaCrescent plum (Myro rootstock, standard) – Boy do plums grow quickly. Pain in my @ss. If you want a climbing tree for children plant this tree, it has the best, most gnarled branches of any tree in the garden and the trunk is STURDY. It has to be pruned constantly. It is smack in the middle of the garden, so we are always fighting it as it steals sunlight from its neighbors. This is a hybrid plum (Japanese x American) so it is cold hardy but still has good flavor. UNFORTUNATELY the website stated hybrid plums will pollinate each other, and they will not. We had to plant an American plum and wait for it to flower before we started getting fruit from this giant tree. It is worth it…the fruits are a beautiful gold color and they are VERY tasty (all four of them). This plum attracts aphids and it is one of the only trees I need to treat during the year, usually with hard sprays of water. (planted 5/12/15, early-season blooming)
Alderman plum (Marianna 2624 standard) – This tree also succumbed to mice during the first winter, and was replaced by a Alderman plum #2 in the spring. (planted 5/12/15, early-season blooming)
Whitney crabapple (M7 rootstock, semidwarf) – This ‘dessert’ crabapple has lost branches and otherwise been mistreated, but it is very hardy and consistently produces a crop of very tasty crabapples. A workhorse, both for pollination and for fruit. (planted 5/12/15, early-season blooming)
Reliance peach (dwarf) – The best thing about this peach tree is it has fabulous hot pink blooms every spring. We planted it in the wrong spot…peaches need ALL the sun you have, and it barely gets a full 6 hours. It has stayed small, and only produces small peaches every few years. I think it would do fine somewhere with full sun. It has made it through nearly a decade of McCall winters with minimal damage, so thumbs up for winter hardiness.
Redhaven peach – DEAD. This was a zone 5 tree, and it gave up quickly. Would not try again without more global warming.
Raspberries (red, yellow) – There is a whole post written about how the raspberries fared in their first year, and 9 seasons later they are still going strong. They have escaped. They come up everywhere there is water. We have to dig them out of the raised beds, it’s annoying. On the other hand, that little 30′ bed of raspberries needs no fertilizer, gets watered once every two weeks, and produces over 40 lbs of berries every year. And sun-ripened raspberries are my favorite. We don’t net them, although in 2024 there was a big wasp population and they ate at least as many berries as I did. There are still two unknown types of red raspberries and then a little population of golden raspberries, and they are doing great. The new canes get tied up in the fall in bundles after the dead canes trimmed out. Golden raspberries don’t spread as vigorously, and will try very hard to produce a second crop on the primocanes in the fall, but we usually don’t have a long enough season to take advantage of that.
Honeyberries (Cinderella, Borealis, etc) – At this point I have nine or so various honeyberry bushes. We’ve moved them all over (in 2024 the original four replaced the garlic beds under the apple trees) and every type produces differently and some are much more tasty. It doesn’t matter for two reasons: 1) They break easily under the snow and are prone to mouse damage, and they produce on second year growth, so they haven’t had impressive crops and 2) THE BIRDS ARE OBSESSED WITH THEM so unless conditions are perfect we don’t get to eat them. The birds will sneak in UNDER THE NETS to eat honeyberries. They aren’t even that good! They are pretty far down on the list, actually. They ripen from the outside in, and it takes them forever to ripen. Pretty tart, a little bitter. Novelty fruit. Would probably make an amazing wine if I could get enough of them at once. They do well in the shade, but with the amount of snow we get every winter they just aren’t practical. They need some kind of structure to protect them.
Gooseberries (Poorman, Pixwell, and Black Velvet) – I love gooseberries, but they have lots of drawbacks. A local pest targets them. I have picked dozens of tiny green worms off a single plant. They are THORNY. No getting around that, the varieties I planted have their own defense system (but not against tiny green worms). They do well when you tie them up over the winter but you practically need armor. They need full sun. All the sun. More sun than I am willing to give them. We moved them from their choice spot in the middle of the garden to the crappy soil along the back fence, where they are fighting some hops and a sea of yellow raspberries. They are still producing, so I have hope for them. I love a tart berry (I think they taste a little like plums), and they are a pretty plant and a very pretty and unique berry.
Seaberries (Sea Buckthorne) – We planted a male and a female plank near the honeyberries, near the waterline, intending to move them as soon as we could. They took off and sent out a lot of runners. In 2019 we moved them out of the garden, kind of chopping their robust roots and moving them (and their thorns) into the woods behind the chicken coop. The move was tough on them and they didn’t get enough water back there. They finally gave up in 2020. The photo is from 2019, so the WILL flower and fruit up here. We planted four more in between our northern fruit trees in 2024.
Strawberries – I don’t know if strawberries need a report, since they grow wild in the woods nearby. And in the garden. Wild strawberries are everywhere. Our favorite variety is Seascape, which produce until it freezes. We moved the berries from a dedicated bed and now they line the paths. They do really well with lots of mulch, it cuts down on the amount of water they need. Seascapes are everbearing, so they don’t produce a huge crop in early summer like Junebearing varieties. Except…we have hundreds of them, so they do produce a huge crop. They are fantastic dried, if you have the same problem! Robins do go after ripening strawberries, so plant bright red flowers (dianthus bloom at the right time) or paint a few rocks to look like strawberries. I started alpine strawberries from seed and they produce very small, tasty berries on really attractive bushy plants, they are great for lining a walkway. The variety I grew doesn’t produce runners like the Seascapes. I also have lots of fun varieties in the garden bar, including a few pineapple strawberries, which are small-medium and delicious! I always forget they are ripe because they are a very light yellow, but…so do the birds.
2016 (Timber Garden Year 2)
Gravenstein apple – We bought this while visiting my parents on the Oregon coast, and it WAS suspiciously separated from the other nursery stock. It never did well, which was unfortunate because as a triploid it needs 3 other trees to fertilize the flowers, and we really put the effort in to gather them all together so it had a chance. So much for zone 2 hardiness. I suspect this particular tree might have had the cards stacked against it. DEAD.
3-in-1 Northern apple (Bud 118 rootstock, semi-standard) – We planted this tree in the shadiest corner of the orchard, and in 2021 we finally took down a Ponderosa pine that blocked all the morning sun. It flowers every spring, all at different times, but only one branch consistently produces. Which one? Who could possibly know, the nursery didn’t send it labeled. The apples are tart and on the small side, and I can’t let them ripen fully because 3 out of 4 years BEARS come and eat them before I can pick them. For a semi-standard tree it is tiny.
Nijisseiki (20th Century) Asian pear (semidwarf) – The Asian pears were probably mislabeled, their actual zone hardiness is NOT 3/4 if you look online. They were planted inside the garden, but in the slightest dip in the ground where cold tends to gather and their afternoon sun is partially blocked. They were generally ignored the first few years, without the soil amendments that most of the other trees received. They were sort of in the ‘wilds’ of the garden. The Nijisseiki really struggled, had some snow damage, and we finally pulled it out in 2023.
Shinseiki Asian pear (semidwarf) – The Shinseiki seems to be more hardy, and produces huge, lovely white blooms in the spring. It is still a small, struggling tree, maybe 7′ tall, but in 2024 it was loaded with fruit. I didn’t think the Flemish pear would help with pollination, but it must have! This is not the first year we had Asian pears ripen but it was by far the most fruit we have harvested. Maybe 20-30 pears? They were on the small side, but had decent flavor.
Blueberries (Chandler, Northland, Chippewa, Patriot, North Country, Northblue, Pink Popcorn) – Yes. Plant blueberries. After having this variety in a raised bed for 8 seasons, I can say I love them all except the Pink Popcorn. That one BARELY produces and the flavor isn’t as good. I’m rehoming it. The rest of the blueberries, despite being different hardiness zones, types, sizes, bloom time, fruit times, are doing so well. They are actually a fairly uniform size, and they seem to ripen from east to west, regardless of which ones are early- or late-season. They space themselves out nicely so we get blueberries all summer. They are LOADED. They took one year off when a frost hit just as they were flowering, but otherwise I can’t believe how much fruit is on these plants. They are so easy to care for. Toby ties them up with twine in the fall, and in the spring I prune any dead or broken branches. We fertilize them with an acidic fertilizer when they first put on growth. I highly recommend blueberries in McCall, they are one of the tastiest and most productive berries we grow. (So easy I planted another raised bed of eight!) I do have a favorite….the Chandler blueberries are the size of quarters.
Honeycrisp apple #2 (rootstock unknown) – This was a replacement tree for one that had vole damage, and it has caught up with its Honeygold co-pollinator and produces fabulous apples! As I mentioned above, the Honeycrisp does tend to produce every other year, especially if you don’t thin the apples and it stresses the tree. The Honeycrisp needs less pruning than the Honeygold, thankfully, but is still a nice healthy tree. The fruit is medium-sized and delicious, and keeps for several months in the garage. (mid-season blooming)
Alderman plum #2 (Myro rootstock, standard) – This was a replacement tree for one that had vole damage, and it is the most gangly, annoyingly fast-growing fruit tree. I wish we hadn’t gotten this rootstock, it’s a little too vigorous. It is right by the path so I’m always trimming it back. Probably our most hideous tree, but it is not the tree’s fault. Poor placement aside, this hybrid plum grows the most stunning, heart-shaped, sunset colored plums. AND they are delicious. I hope both hybrid plums finally start producing (it’s so sad to see them set fruit and then most of it drops!) now that the American plum is bigger. Honestly, I would plant a second Alderman plum just because the fruit is so stunning.
Van sweet cherry (Gisela 5 rootstock, semidwarf) – Our sweet cherry trees really started producing a big crop in 2024, and they are SO tasty. Van sweet cherries are very dark red and ripen in mid August. We planted them in a protected area between the north side of the house and the garden. Theoretically, this makes them stay dormant longer in the spring because it stays shady longer, and flowering is delayed. Even though they are borderline hardy for this zone, they seem to set fruit just fine every year. When this tree was young I made the mistake of pruning it in the later winter/early spring when it was still dormant. This is usually recommended, and it is when we prune most of our trees. Don’t do it with your borderline hardy trees! It seems to wake them up early and they get frost damage. I now delay pruning my sweet cherries until late spring. They need very little pruning.
Hartland sweet cherry (Gisela 12 rootstock, semidwarf) – This sweet cherry ripens about two weeks earlier than the Van, in mid-July to early August. Even though this is a short time, the Van has a lot more creatures trying to eat the fruit. Ants and birds are the main pests. The Hartland cherries are very dark red and a bit bigger than Van. I highly recommend both of these sweet cherries for cold climates.
Dolgo crabapple – We bought this tree from Ridley’s on sale at the end of the season. We needed a white-blossomed crabapple for pollination. We stuck it in the back row and while I assume it will never reach its projected height of 40 feet in the shade, it’s doing really well and the crabapples are surprisingly tasty. It is a pretty tree and has been very low maintenance. (hardy to -50F, self-fertile)
Lignonberry (Koralle) – The jury is out on these still. We planted a pair and they have now moved twice. They lived in the blueberry bed for a while. I fear one of them did not survive the last move to be in the shade near the honeyberries. I’ve only seen them bloom a handful of times, and they have never produced fruit. You’d think these things would thrive here….maybe it’s not cold enough.
Salmonberry – I actually BOUGHT this one deadish, so maybe this will be a reverse story. This plant was transplanted a few years ago to be near the espaliered apricot wall, and I don’t think it had enough sun back behind the honeyberries. I will have to check this spring.
Silver Buffaloberry – Dead. Planted it out by the mailbox, and it did not thrive on neglect and partial shade.
Hardy kiwis – Dead by choice. I was so excited for these kiwis, but even though they ARE technically hardy and the plants will come back every year, the growing season isn’t long enough for them to fruit. The new growth is also very frost sensitive. Had to scrap this idea, I think I dug them and gave them away.
Black raspberries (Munger, Jewel) – These plants were pioneers, in the absolutely terrible soil around the garden bar before there was a garden bar and it was just baked clay and a fenceline. They really struggled for the first few years, but they are raspberries so they perservered. Black raspberries are not invasive like red varieties, but the clusters do get bigger every year and the old canes need to be removed. They (both varieties) are SO TASTY, and it is fun to have the tall arching branches along the fence, ready to be snacked upon. They have produced more berries every year, so even though I only have a few plants, I am giving away black raspberries or freezing them. Really amazing flavor. The berries are very seedy, but that’s just how black raspberries are. I would say Jewel is slightly more juicy, but there isn’t a big difference. Like their red counterparts, they thrive on nothing. Highly recommend.
Fig (Violetta de Bordeaux) – This stupid Zone 5 plant. I had it in a pot for years, it never did anything. I took cuttings and gave them to a friend with an underground greenhouse, and it did really well. Fig cuttings root very easily. I finally just planted it in the ground out of frustration, thinking it would die, but it comes back every year from the roots and at some point I am going to have to move it before my bee balm completely engulfs it. Recommended for a warmer zone, I will give you a cutting.
Hazelnut trees (4) – DEAD, possibly in the refrigerator before they even had a chance to get their little roots in the ground. Followed by several more attempts at hazelnuts which made it to various stages but are all also dead.
2017 (Timber Garden Year 3)
Reliance grape – This hardy table grape was planted against the south side of the greenhouse and trellised low so it wouldn’t block the sun coming in. It did consistently well for the first several years, putting out beautiful foliage and occasionally producing small clusters of tasty grapes. 2024 was its best year, the vines were just loaded with beautiful grape clusters. I made an effort to prune properly, which surely helped with ripening! They turn a dusty champagne color when they are ripe, with a rose undertone. We had so many grapes I had to dry most of them as raisins, but the fresh flavor is incredible in fruit salads. I’ve been adding them to cinnamon-raisin sourdough bread over the winter, no complaints. This variety has performed in the cold, with no special treatment. Highly recommend to short-season gardeners!
2018 (Timber Garden Year 4)
Contender peach #1 – Self-fertile. If you are going to get one peach tree in your cold weather climate, make it a Contender peach. We liked it so much we bought a second one the next year. They grow incredibly fast, so even if you do lose a branch or two to heavy snow they will bounce back quickly. Three years after planting we harvested about 20 lbs of peaches. We have gotten bushels of peaches off of these two trees. We have gotten enough to can, dry, give away…that is saying a lot with young peach trees with a very short growing season. As a bonus, they have great flavor, they are freestone, and the skin is easy to remove when processing. Every year I lament that the peaches won’t ripen in time, and pretty much every year they do!
I only have one negative thing to say about these trees, and that is they are prone to sunscald and damage on the young trunks. I’m afraid we will have to replace one of them already because of a slow death from trunk damage. 100% would recommend Contender peaches! Remember, peaches will be the fruit tree that needs the most sunny spot you have!
Bush cherries (Hanson’s, Nanking, Carmine Jewel, Crimson Passion, Romeo, Juliet) – Oh, my precious bush cherries. I had such high hopes. They were supposed to thrive in the cold. The University of Saskatchewan Romance series (Carmine Jewel, Crimson Passion, Romeo, and Juliet) are Zone 2. Unfortunately, they are planted along the south fence of the garden, where the soil has never been improved, the sun is fickle, and the watering is…also fickle. The Nanking cherries (planted on either side of the gate) have a beautiful upright habit but unfortunately get eating by voles every winter…they spring back every year and grow to four feet, but I think I am going to finally tear them out. If they have second year growth they do flower beautifully. The Hansen’s bush cherries are actually the only ones to consistently produce fruit, and the cherries are outrageously dark red. I’ve never had one actually ripen over there in the shade, unfortunately. They have a very droopy growth habit, practically growing along the ground. Finally, the Romance series. They are doing better where there is a little more sun (but unfortunately also more winter predators) but they really need to be supported over the winter. I have not had fruit from any…tempted to dig them up and give them to someone with more space and more sunshine.
American plum – This whispy little North American native is one of the parent plants to my two hybrid plums, and is therefore the pollinator that they so desperately needed. These plums unfortunately are usually found as very small saplings, so it took a long few years before it was big enough to produce any blooms for the aforementioned pollination. Now that the tree is older I would classify it as a natural dwarf, and it is a GORGEOUS flowering tree that we were fortunate enough to plant right at the entrance to the garden. While our hybrid plums have started setting more fruit, the American plum itself has never set fruit. It is prone to aphids, like all of our plums, and has a meandering, almost weeping form. It is 6 years old and I would estimate the height at 8 feet.
2019 (Timber Garden Year 5)
Wickson crabapple (Budagovsky 9 rootstock) – Selected for its excellent cider qualities, this very pretty, tiny crabapple tree secured itself a prime location along the garden path. So far it is behaving, and in 2024 it produces a decent crop (all of a sudden, after producing nothing for six years). We didn’t plant it for eating quality, and we didn’t juice the fruit, so I can’t give a report.
Redfield crabapple (Budagovsky 9 rootstock) – Sadly, dead, but it turns out we didn’t want a tree there anyway. This tree should have thrived but seemed to have frozen.
Scout apricot – Bought for its cold hardiness and pollination abilities, not the flavor of its fruit, this tree became the first victim of the northwest corner of the garden, possibly due to vole activity around the roots.
Westcot apricot – We’ll see after this winter.
Sugar Pearl apricot (Myrobalan rootstock) – Unbelievable still alive, probably because it is farthest away from the cursed northwest corner of the garden, where apricots go to die. Slowly being espaliered along the wall, battling the voles. No fruit yet.
Veteran peach (seedling) – DEAD ON ARRIVAL. I was excited to try this one, but it was dead and we replaced it the same year with a second Contender peach.
Flemish pear (OHxF 87 rootstock, semidwarf) – This is a self-pollinating dessert pear, and in 2024 it produced a massive crop of pretty pears that we thinned multiple times. We probably should have thinned more, because the flavor wasn’t great. We ended up drying them and they were meh, fine. I won’t hold it against the tree, it is barely mature by short-season growing standards. It’s like we get a partial year of growth each year. The tree has great shape, very attractive and surprisingly compact for a rootstock that retains 60-70% of its growth.
Contender peach #2 – Not a replacement, just a second Contender peach tree because the first one was so great. 🙂
Maypop vine – also known as passion flower vines, these Zone 5 fruits produce an absolutely alien flower that is so fun to grow. I loved having these in the garden, but they do need protection and did best in the greenhouse. They DID start to produce a few of the large round fruits, but none were close to ripe at the end of the growing season. These are fun if you can find a potted plant that you can transplant, but I have not had any luck growing them from seed.
2020 (Timber Garden Year 6)
Grapes (Itasca, Marquette) – I planted two of each of these hardy wine grapes (one white, one red) and they have really struggled. I’m down to one of each on a trellis in the front of the garden, and they do reliably come back every year, and occasionally put out beautiful leaves, but they really seem to get zapped back in the winter and most years they come back from the roots instead of last year’s woody growth. I’m hoping they will get more established in time and produce like my Reliance table grape, but so far no grapes.
Purple raspberries (Royalty) – These crosses can be hard to find, so when I ate the first giant, juicy purple berry and it tasted watery and horrible, I was so sad! I have two purple raspberries growing in the garden bar, and the entire first year they produced a handful of tasteless berries. Thankfully, the second year they were loaded and the berries had MUCH better flavor. Give them a chance, I’m really happy with how they are producing now.
Arctic raspberries (Beta, Sophia) – Oh my heart, these fun and unique little ground covers are all dead. They are supposed to carpet the ground with a 6″ high berry bush. Look up a photo, you’ll want them too. I think they too were shaded out by the honeyberries behind the garden bar, so I will definitely try these again in a spot with better conditions. They did survive the winter.
2021 (Timber Garden Year 7)
Thimbleberries – Sometimes you just grow a plant because it is on sale and it’s a challenge, because thimbleberries grow all over the McCall area and I barely like them on the wild plants. I guess I just wanted to see if I could grow a thimbleberry that wasn’t covered in dust from the road or growing in a ravine. I have two plants, one under the garden bar and one by the hops. They are prolific and their leaves are quite beautiful, but they JUST started producing berries in 2024. They are just as fragile as the wild berries. Successful, but don’t bother?
Canadian white Blenheim apricot – A replacement for the continuously dying apricots in their cursed corner of the garden. Is it alive? Honestly I’ve kind of lost track of what set of apricots we’re on now. The important thing is we have never produced/tasted apricots so I have nothing to report.
2022 (Timber Garden Year 8)
Black Tartarian sweet cherry – The bad thing about sweet cherries is they need a pollinator. When I thought I’d killed the Hartland cherry, it meant NO sweet cherries until it could be replaced. We’ve ‘swapped’ branches…grafted branches from one tree onto its pollinator buddy…just in case we lose one. Our Honeygold apply produces one branch of Honeycrisp. With sweet cherries it’s the worst case scenario, because they take SEVEN YEARS to mature (which is like 14 years in McCall). I’d been eyeing a Black Tartarian for years as a backup, and finally found one in Boise. So far it’s doing great!
Blackberries (Doyle’s thornless) – We planted four of these Zone 4 blackberries in between the apricots, hoping I could tie the canes up to the wall. Well, they haven’t gotten that big yet. They are hiding behind the honeyberries, which thrive just when I don’t want them to. They are plugging along back there, and I think they will do well once they are established.
Evans Bali pie cherry #2 – We planted this where the Gravenstein apple used to be, and I’m not sure what we were thinking. Honestly, our two pie cherries overwhelm us every year with the amount of cherries and the NETTING oh the netting. You need infinite patience. (Netting has improved immensely since Toby bought a 12′ orchard ladder.)
2024 (Timber Garden Year 9)
Asian pear (Missoula) – Replacement Asian pear, goes right in the same spot as the one that died, but we had a chance to build up the soil quite a bit in the interim. This one should be a little more cold hardy, so hopefully it does well. It is a mere stick, and is already suffering under the weight of the snow.
Weeping cherry – Ooooooo finally got a beautiful weeping cherry for the flower bed in the middle of the garden! It is flanked by peonies and other things I’m unwilling to move. We’d been looking for one for a while, and boy are they kind of expensive, but that’s what you get when you buy a tree that is wearing another tree as a hat. Hoping it makes it through the winter, because it’s shape is exactly terrible for the snow load in McCall.