You can grow certain varieties of plums, cherries, and pears in South Dakota as fruit trees for zone 4 on the hardiness map. With cherries, there are two types: sweet and sour. The sweet varieties are not reliable in this…
Fruit Trees for Zone 4
Category: Fruit trees and fruit shrubs
Apple Varieties in Zone 4 Climate
What apple varieties will grow in our cold Zone 4 climate? The worst thing is to wait several years and never have a crop because the fruit blossoms are not hardy. Some good varieties to grow in South Dakota are:…
Frost Cracks
We now know how to care for evergreens in the winter to prevent needle kill. What about trees that lose their leaves? If there are winter thaws during January and February, this can cause frost cracks going down the trunk…
What is Espalier
An old way of pruning fruits against a wall, fence, or other flat area was called espalier. This French word means “something to rest on”. This art was a practice in Mt. Vernon and other spots in early colonial days.…
Durian (The Smelly Fruit)
So why are grocery stores selling this? Like most controversial foods, durian is an acquired taste
Cedar Apple Rust in South Dakota
Cedar apple rust is a fungal disease that requires juniper plants to complete its complicated two-year lifecycle. Spores overwinter as a reddish-brown gall on young twigs of various juniper species. In early spring, during wet weather, these galls swell, and…
Pruning Trees (fruit and shade)
You do not need a BA degree in pruning trees either fruit or shade trees. Most trees do best when pruned and trained to a central leader tree (one main stem). This type of tree has a pyramidal shape with…
Mandarins, tangerines, clementine
A mandarin orange is a slightly smaller relative of the standard orange. The tangerine and clementine are varietals of the mandarin, much in the same way gala and fuji are apple varieties. Mandarins originated in China, hence the name. China is…