The following is an experiment, it's a blog I've been writing for years through scattered social media posts, brought together into a magazine or editorial format. It's an idea that's been on my mind for some time, in today's world the large platforms want every idea to be a flash in the pan, surfacing only the latest and what the algorithm prefers, probably someone dancing around or doing the most outrageous thing will find more views than a post about trees. Even if you happen to follow our social media, many posts are only shown for a minute to a few of our followers. The large platforms are walled gardens, and they actually make your experience poor if you want to dive deep, to explore and read, to test it just try and search through old instagram posts. I've been using these tools to photo blog, to keep my own records about significant or interesting things related to the journey starting my little nursery, and learning about grafting, gardening, propagation, permaculture, and nature in general. This is a blog post, maybe a unique one because it's a simple compilation of Instagram posts grouped under one topic so they are easier to browse. They're sorted by seasons, and the captions written are the original posts with some light editing (by me a real person - Doug @ Oak Summit Nursery).
Questions and comments always welcome to doug@oaksummitnursery.ca.
Plum And Cherry Hybrids
21 postsWinter
21 postscherry plums are a hybrid plum that grow as a bush, some of them introduced 100 years ago, and a few of the newer ones
are canadian introductions. grow a variety of them for good pollination, these are easy to grow bushes that fruit early in the second or third year, and cold hardy to -40...
Read field notenice to get the winter garden started, here are nanking cherry on day 4
first true leaves coming out. this is an exciting batch in a breeding effort to select some new white fruited ones. since this is seed from white nanking cherry fruit, any of the self pollinated fruits have...
Read field noteCheck on your seeds when cold stratifying, if you start them early you get some good germination in the fridge. white nanking and sour cherry seeds at 4 months are ready to grow, and will get potted up under some lights until spring. #seedstarting
checking on sweet cherry grafted onto pin cherry, has anyone else tried this
I'll be amazed if the grafts survive, we've had quite a few nights below -35.. but a quick scratch test looks alive, though I guess cold damage might not appear until spring? the premise I'm testing is this european...
Read field noteplum seeds germinating last may
I found some in a bed that were planted two years before, the rest I let germinate in bags of damp peat moss in our root cellar before potting up. The seeds can have a long dormancy so you need to cold stratify a few...
Read field noteplum scion wood bundles that were cut early, just checking in on the moisture
looks good. Most people cut scions in spring, but there are good reasons to do some earlier. You can cut dormant scion wood any time after the leaves drop, and it can be easier in late november here before the snow gets...
Read field noteapricot trees can get big
this one found at a local orchard, species unknown could be prunus sibirica, the new growth and buds look like apricot to me. fully hardy in zone 3/ -40C owner said...
Read field notesiberian peach, or chinese wild peach
Prunus davidiana, similar to Siberian C with a fruit that’s a bit smaller but sweet + delicious, with a thicker fuzzier skin. zone 3/4, one of the most cold hardy peaches. growing these this summer to try as a rootstock...
Read field notegets me excited about fruit breeding
this hybrid tree is a cross between nanking (top fruit) and japanese plum, and produced a tree that grows like a nanking, fruits like a nanking with many fruit along the branches, but much larger, and hardy to zone...
Read field notecanada wild plum, or p
nigra cross. upright tree form, double bumps on the leaf margins, thin point in the leaf. seeds will be hybridized since it was in an orchard next to american plums, but still a good find, stratifying these in the root...
Read field noteSanoba and Mana, a couple of cool hybrid sandcherries lost to time from this 1930s SD bulletin
Both are hybrids with Dropmore, named after a Manitoba nursery that’s now the Frank Skinner arboretum. I’m...
Read field notecanada wild plum, prunus nigra
seed collected from a remote area in northern manitoba. these are kinda awesome trees, they don’t sucker like american plum, and they’re an even better pollinator, the best pollinator for hybrid plums. if you have a plum...
Read field notethis is something I feel driven to do, breeding new hybrid fruits, it’s mad science gardening
badass to find a good quality chum x apricot! last page is from a local arboretum, an early attempt at the black nanking...
Read field notewestern sandcherry, prunus besseyi
hansen bush cherries. such a cool plant, the fruit is super tasty (unlike the related eastern sandcherry prunus pumila), it’s one of the parents of most cherry plums and the black nanking, and it’s a super cold hardy...
Read field notesomeone else noticed you can graft toka (prunus simonii hybrid) to chokecherry… in 1887 in this update from the michigan
horticultural society. google books search...
Read field notehappy to announce that we’ve been added to the list of licensed propagators for the Boreal series haskaps bred at U
of Sask in Saskatchewan, Canada. The varieties we’ll be propagating include Aurora, Borral Blizzard, Boreal Beast, Boreal Beauty, and also the cherries Juliette and...
Read field noteToka plum on wild chokecherry grafts
This one hybrid variety had the best compatibility and put on 3-4ft of growth last year. I’ve left them to overwinter with budding tape in place to add a little insulation from sun scald, hoping these make it through the...
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