In article , says...
Vox Humana wrote:
I see people make really poor
plant choices in my neighborhood and then move. The problem is ultimately
passed along to someone else. That innocent experiment or impulse purchase
turns into someone else's expensive tree removal.


God bless America!

I think it's a good thing that people have an opportunity to make stupid
choices, don't you? Otherwise life would be kind of boring. Especially
in the suburbs.

BTW, I like the pear tree that came up from a seed at my parent's house
10 or so years ago. It's about 30 feet tall (pears grow straight up like
a poplar if they get a chance) and it's way too close to the garage. It
is disease free and has hard little pears a little bigger than a walnut,
and thorns like a honeylocust. It has a lot of character. :-) I think
the pears would make good pickles.

Best regards,
Bob


I guess I'll never be able to sell this house with it's 23 fruit
bearing trees and schrubs I've planted around it. I paid a hundred and
fifty grand for it 10 years ago and did have to remove an ash tree
planted to close to a wall lifting it up, an old plum that died of
heart rot, a peach that had termites, a lemon tree that was in bad
shape, oleander don't like oleander, 6 Hollywood Junipers, and 4
Italian Cypress. These had all died or had become heavily drought
stressed because they hadn't been watered in 6 months. The house was a
repo/fixer upper.

The lemon I took out came back as a sucker from one of the roots I
missed. It's about 5 feet tall now and puts out some nice lemons.
Yup, I just left that sucker grow just to see what it would do.

I sometimes wonder if that lemon tree started from some child of one
of the previous owners sticking a seed in the ground.

The real estate agents that come up and knock on my door every week
must be pulling my leg. They insist they can get $500,000 or more for
my house if I'll let them carry the listing. Those real estate agents
must be real kidders, going around door to door and ribbing people like
that.

God Bless the USA.

Bill

Bill expounded:

Maybe he just wants to experiment, or possibly have some father son
time.

But we've already been told that the child will lose interest in five
minutes, so the father shouldn't bother (good thing my mother
'bothered', I followed her around her herb garden and found a
lifestyle I love).
--
Ann, gardening in Zone 6a
South of Boston, Massachusetts
e-mail address is not checked
******************************

"zxcvbob" wrote in message
...
Vox Humana wrote:
I see people make really poor
plant choices in my neighborhood and then move. The problem is
ultimately
passed along to someone else. That innocent experiment or impulse
purchase
turns into someone else's expensive tree removal.


God bless America!

I think it's a good thing that people have an opportunity to make stupid
choices, don't you? Otherwise life would be kind of boring. Especially
in the suburbs.

Sure, I think it good that people have the opportunity to fail. Still, I am
grateful when I pick up a plant at the nursery and have a trusted staff
person tell me that the plant is likely to be inferior or become invasive.
If they engage me in WHY I am buying the plant and help me sort out what
would fulfill my needs, I see it as a service. I could go to Wal-Mart and
take my chances. There are so many opportunities to make mistakes that when
someone gives me advice that helps avoid failure, I see it as a benefit. I
still might go with my first decision, but it will be an informed one.

One example of how stupid mistakes makes life more boring in the suburbs
occurred in my neighborhood. The developer put in a large number of
Bradford Pears and planted many trees far too close to the houses. The
pears are all breaking in strong winds and the trees planted too close to
the houses are being removed. Now the lots are being transformed into
really boring landscapes. Some people don't believe in stump removal, so
not only is there are loss of trees, but now stumps dot small lawns. Had
someone stopped the person choosing the plant material and discussed
alternatives to the Bradford pears and suggested that planting a tree three
feet from the foundation is not a good idea, I think things would be less
boring. Of course, reasonable people will disagree.

In article ,
says...
This whole thread seems much ado about nothing. EVERY seedling apple tree
produces edible fruit - the problem is that most seedlings will produce
fruit that is too sour for most people's taste. A lot of sugar will turn
those apples into delicious apple pies, apple sauce, apple butter, or can be
mixed with other types of apples to make a great cider. There's a wild park
area in my town. There are quite a few seedling apple trees there. Russian
families go there in the fall and gather the fruit for something. (Homemade
vodka?) Having tasted a lot of those apples, I can tell you definitively,
they are not choice varieties......LOL Now, if most apple seedlings produced
poisonous fruit, with only a few select kinds being non-poisonous, that
would be a different situation entirely. However, if a person has a small
yard, a questionable apple tree seems a waste of space. Apples are not my
personal favorites as trees OR as fruit, but to each his own - and every
tree has beautiful fragrant flowers for 2 weeks or so in the spring, so that
counts as something.




Absolutely. And if the experiment is a bust, you have apple wood for
smoking meat and fish.

Bill

How admirable! This garden forum is now recommending people to grow 'duds'.
Maybe we can recommend that our local Botanic Garden or Extension Centers give
courses on how to grow 'duds'?

Janet Baraclough wrote:

The message
from Charles contains these words:

On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 23:57:58 -0500, sherwindu
wrote:

Wait a minute. This guy is going to put lots of labor into caring
for this tree, and 5 or
more years down the road, he is going to wind up with a junky apple,
unless of course you believe in
miracles, but that's not where I would put my money or time.
If he really wants a good tasting apple, let him shell out 15 or 20
bucks and buy
something decent. I'm not going to even mention grafting, as I think
he has not reached that point
of involvement in growing apples.

Sherwin D.


and maybe have some fun doing it. Did you ever try something that you
didn't know ahead of time how it would turn out?

He's probably a virgin, also.

Janet

"K. Kly" wrote in
:

So one day my 4 yr old is eating an apple and asks my wife about seeds
& such. So they decide to do a little expirement and plant the seed.
Low and behold a seedling sprouts up and they cherish it and nuture
it, etc, etc. 5 months later and the thing is only about 5 inches
tall, but has a bunch of leaves on it. They've got it in a little
container(we live in Ohio).

Thing is, they both think they are going to plant it outside next
spring and my wife seems to think that in a few years we'll have an
apple tree. And of course she is telling my son this. Meanwhile, I'm
skeptical of the whole thing. First of all, we don't know what kind
of apple it was, we don't know if it'll survive in Ohio and we
certainly don't know if it will bear fruit. Doesn't their have to be
some cross pollination or something for a tree to bare fruit?

What's the fture of this 5inch apple tree?




++++++

This is a verbatim copy from the following URL ....

http://www.quakernet.org/MonthlyMeet...ory-hiatt.html

(Quote)

Did You Know?

The Red Delicious apple was discovered by a Quaker

Jesse Hiatt, a Quaker farmer in Peru, Iowa, found the seedling growing
out of place in his orchard in 1872 and chopped it down. It grew back the
next year and he chopped it down again. When it grew back the third year,
he said, "If thee must grow, thee may."

For the next ten years, he cared for the apple seedling without knowing
what it would produce. Apples freely cross breed and mutate, with results
that can be spectacularly unpalatable or sublime. Jesse knew the gamble,
having already developed two varieties, Hiatt Sweet and Hiatt Black.

When the tree finally produced its fruit, Jesse declared it the “best-
tasting apple in the world” and originally named it Hawkeye after the
state where he made his home with his wife and ten children. The new
breed was re-christened “Delicious” after it won first prize in a contest
in Louisiana, Missouri.

Jesse died in 1898 at the age of 72. The original Red Delicious tree
survived him until the 1940s, and even after it died, sprouts grew up
around the stump.

(End of Quote)


Good Luck ....

The message you are not giving this little boy is that there is better fruit available than
what he can find in the supermarkets. He will have no motivation to get into gardening with the
memory of that awful apple he bit into.

Sherwin D.

Janet Baraclough wrote:

The message
from sherwindu contains these words:

How admirable! This garden forum is now recommending people to grow 'duds'.

No, it's recommending that gardening is an area where producing the
perfect result is not the sole, or even the most important purpose. What
matters is for a child who has eaten an apple and sprouted its pip, to
feel the magical connection to the earth and his part in the cycle of
growing things. For a child to learn that the simplest personal
involvement is more satisfying than any item or experience made by
someone else or bought from a shop. For him to learn that it's good to
experiment and explore, that often, what is most worthwhile and
entertaining is not uniform, not predictable, and far from perfect.

A neighbour of ours was an old man who has lived in his childhood
home all his life. As a boy he grew an apple pip which is now a large
espalier against the gable end of the house. It's beautiful in blossom,
it's his creation and part of his history and memories. Those are far
more important than the very trivial fact that he doesn't like the
fruit. Birds do, and their annual feasting probably gives him more joy
and delight than any apple he's ever tasted.

Janet.

sherwindu wrote:
The message you are not giving this little boy is that there is better fruit available than
what he can find in the supermarkets. He will have no motivation to get into gardening with the
memory of that awful apple he bit into.



I disagree. As Joyce Kilmer said, "Only God can make a tree", and the
little boy got a chance to help.

-Bob

You should tell him about the guy who won the Lotto with just one ticket purchase.
Have faith an someday you may hit it big.

"Pseud O. Nym" wrote:

"K. Kly" wrote in
:

So one day my 4 yr old is eating an apple and asks my wife about seeds
& such. So they decide to do a little expirement and plant the seed.
Low and behold a seedling sprouts up and they cherish it and nuture
it, etc, etc. 5 months later and the thing is only about 5 inches
tall, but has a bunch of leaves on it. They've got it in a little
container(we live in Ohio).

Thing is, they both think they are going to plant it outside next
spring and my wife seems to think that in a few years we'll have an
apple tree. And of course she is telling my son this. Meanwhile, I'm
skeptical of the whole thing. First of all, we don't know what kind
of apple it was, we don't know if it'll survive in Ohio and we
certainly don't know if it will bear fruit. Doesn't their have to be
some cross pollination or something for a tree to bare fruit?

What's the fture of this 5inch apple tree?




++++++

This is a verbatim copy from the following URL ....

http://www.quakernet.org/MonthlyMeet...ory-hiatt.html

(Quote)

Did You Know?

The Red Delicious apple was discovered by a Quaker

Jesse Hiatt, a Quaker farmer in Peru, Iowa, found the seedling growing
out of place in his orchard in 1872 and chopped it down. It grew back the
next year and he chopped it down again. When it grew back the third year,
he said, "If thee must grow, thee may."

For the next ten years, he cared for the apple seedling without knowing
what it would produce. Apples freely cross breed and mutate, with results
that can be spectacularly unpalatable or sublime. Jesse knew the gamble,
having already developed two varieties, Hiatt Sweet and Hiatt Black.

Jesse did not casually take any old seeds to plant his tree. He knew something
about the parentage of the trees he was dealing with. But I still consider him a
lucky guy.

For every story like this, there are probably thousands of others where people
just wasted their time and efforts. If you like really long shots, go for it.



When the tree finally produced its fruit, Jesse declared it the “best-
tasting apple in the world” and originally named it Hawkeye after the
state where he made his home with his wife and ten children. The new
breed was re-christened “Delicious” after it won first prize in a contest
in Louisiana, Missouri.

Jesse died in 1898 at the age of 72. The original Red Delicious tree
survived him until the 1940s, and even after it died, sprouts grew up
around the stump.

(End of Quote)

Good Luck ....

In article ,
says...
The message you are not giving this little boy is that there is better fruit available than
what he can find in the supermarkets. He will have no motivation to get into gardening with the
memory of that awful apple he bit into.

Sherwin D.


If it wasn't for clairvoyants like yourself, this world would
never amount to anything. Do you happen to have next weeks lottery
numbers?

Bill

Bill,
I am not trying to be a 'smart alec' or a 'mister know it all', but this father does have
other easy choices. He can plant a stone fruit seed, which has a much better chance
of coming out with decent tasting fruit. He can plant a raspberry shoot from one of his
neighbor's bush. Giving the kid the false hope that he will get a tasty apple after nurturing his
tree for many years will most likely disappoint him.

By the way, I am not clairvoyant about how these apples will turn out. Just ask any
orchardist in the business if it is profitable to plant apples seeds. These people do look
for new apples (sometimes called 'sports'), but they do it scientifically, mixing known
varieties, and they do get a very low success ratio. Occasionally an amateur will 'stumble' on a
chance mutation, but this rarely happens. There is little doubt that it
is possible to grow an apple from a seed, but unlike vegetables, the result is much less
than what is expected.

Sherwin D.

Bill wrote:

In article ,
says...
The message you are not giving this little boy is that there is better fruit available than
what he can find in the supermarkets. He will have no motivation to get into gardening with the
memory of that awful apple he bit into.

Sherwin D.


If it wasn't for clairvoyants like yourself, this world would
never amount to anything. Do you happen to have next weeks lottery
numbers?

You seem to be a person that likes longshots. Just pick the most unlikely
winner you can think of, and maybe you will strike it rich. Don't forget to
share some of your winnings with me, for my free advice.



Bill

In article ,
says...
Bill,
I am not trying to be a 'smart alec' or a 'mister know it all', but this father does have
other easy choices.

Yes, he does.

He can plant a stone fruit seed, which has a much better chance
of coming out with decent tasting fruit. He can plant a raspberry shoot from one of his
neighbor's bush. Giving the kid the false hope that he will get a tasty apple after nurturing his
tree for many years will most likely disappoint him.

Now see, you can say there is a high probability that the fruit will
be worthless. What you can't say is that there is a 100% certainty of
it.

There's also a good chance that the seeding wouldn't survive the first
winter.


By the way, I am not clairvoyant about how these apples will turn out. Just ask any
orchardist in the business if it is profitable to plant apples seeds. These people do look
for new apples (sometimes called 'sports'), but they do it scientifically, mixing known
varieties, and they do get a very low success ratio. Occasionally an amateur will 'stumble' on a
chance mutation, but this rarely happens.

See, you just said it happens. Yes rarely, but it does happen.

There is little doubt that it
is possible to grow an apple from a seed, but unlike vegetables, the result is much less
than what is expected.

Maybe, maybe not. Do you think that maybe, by the time the tree is old
enough to bear fruit, that the child will have grown enough to
understand that it was a slim possibility that the fruit would be
worthwhile in the end? And that the lesson to be learned is that
without trying, you'll never know for sure?

Besides the name for a fruit tree that puts out crappy or no fruit is
'ornamental'.


Sherwin D.


Bill

sherwindu wrote:
Bill,
I am not trying to be a 'smart alec' or a 'mister know it all', but this father does have
other easy choices. He can plant a stone fruit seed, which has a much better chance
of coming out with decent tasting fruit. He can plant a raspberry shoot from one of his
neighbor's bush. Giving the kid the false hope that he will get a tasty apple after nurturing his
tree for many years will most likely disappoint him.

He just needs to set the kid's expectations for a nice big tree that
will bear yucky apples eventually. The entire top of the tree can be
replaced later by grafting/budding the scaffold branches later if they
want to.

If he "wins the lottery" he might get a good apple and he can name it.

If the fruit is small and sour, it might make good jelly, pickles,
and/or pies.

The tree is unlikely to survive the first year anyway, why not give it a
chance?

If he has room for it, he can also plant a good semi-dwarf grafted tree
and it will bear in about 3 years.

Bob

In article , says...

snip

If he has room for it, he can also plant a good semi-dwarf grafted tree
and it will bear in about 3 years.

Bob


Maybe sooner, the three apple trees I have semi-dwarf Ein Shiemer,
Anna, Pink Lady all produced apples a year after I planted them.
They were about six feet tall when I purchased them.

Bill

Bill wrote:

In article ,
says...
Bill,
I am not trying to be a 'smart alec' or a 'mister know it all', but this father does have
other easy choices.

Yes, he does.

He can plant a stone fruit seed, which has a much better chance
of coming out with decent tasting fruit. He can plant a raspberry shoot from one of his
neighbor's bush. Giving the kid the false hope that he will get a tasty apple after nurturing his
tree for many years will most likely disappoint him.

Now see, you can say there is a high probability that the fruit will
be worthless. What you can't say is that there is a 100% certainty of
it.

There's also a good chance that the seeding wouldn't survive the first
winter.


By the way, I am not clairvoyant about how these apples will turn out. Just ask any
orchardist in the business if it is profitable to plant apples seeds. These people do look
for new apples (sometimes called 'sports'), but they do it scientifically, mixing known
varieties, and they do get a very low success ratio. Occasionally an amateur will 'stumble' on a
chance mutation, but this rarely happens.

See, you just said it happens. Yes rarely, but it does happen.

There is little doubt that it
is possible to grow an apple from a seed, but unlike vegetables, the result is much less
than what is expected.

Maybe, maybe not. Do you think that maybe, by the time the tree is old
enough to bear fruit, that the child will have grown enough to
understand that it was a slim possibility that the fruit would be
worthwhile in the end? And that the lesson to be learned is that
without trying, you'll never know for sure?

Why don't you tell the kid to stand in front of a speeding car, so he can fully
learn what it means to be runned over. He may survive the experience, but
without trying, you'll never know for sure.



Besides the name for a fruit tree that puts out crappy or no fruit is
'ornamental'.

WRONG!

There are specific cultivars of trees like a flowering pear that fall under the
classification of an ornamental tree, or one that never produces ANY fruit.
As far as I know, there is no official name for a tree that puts out bad fruit
or a fruit tree that fails to produce any fruit.




Sherwin D.


Bill

Sherwin D.