What varieties are they? Do they flower, and when relative to other fruit?
I visited Northwoods nursery last fall, they are the wholesale nursery that is owned by the folks who owned One Green World 7 years ago and presumably still provide most of their stock.
We ate some almonds off of trees there in the orchard. I wish I'd made a note of the variety.
In the demo garden of the BRING Recycle of Eugene (http://www.bringrecycling.org/.....ights.html), I saw one of the almond trees setting nice fruits about one month ago, the label said “Dessertiny”.
I have not been able to find real info about “Dessertiny” almond, some seemed to think it could be the same as “Bounty”. (??)
I thought about growing almonds because I love to eat them. They struck me as somewhat like peaches/nectarines/apricots, because they probably grow better in drier areas unlike the west/wet side.
It also struck me that almonds are probably better for people with a lot of space. They don't seem very space efficient. I have a very tight suburban yard, so I felt that it doesn't make too much sense for me.
JohN S
PDX OR
jafar said
What varieties are they? Do they flower, and when relative to other fruit?
The varieties are Oracle and Bounty. They are about 15 feet from each other. They produce plenty of blossoms at the same time, and seem to produce some tiny fruit, but the fruits fall off when they are still tiny.
The OGW catalog says these are good pollinators for each other.
This same exact effect happens with many varieties of cherry and cherry prinsepia (not a true cherry). Many of these fruits that hate wet springs are prunus. The late Lon Rombough explained to me that there is a disease that they get in our wet springs that stops the fruit from growing and makes them fall out. That's why Montmorency is such a great cherry to grow. It does quite well in our climate.
John S
PDX OR
A nursery sent me a "Garden Prince" genetic dwarf almond tree by mistake. I ordered a "Garden Gold" genetic dwarf peach tree. They made good and are shipping the peach tree, and told me to keep the almond.
I never considered growing an almond. Apparently this one is a descendent of cross between almonds and genetic dwarf peaches. Supposedly self fertile, mop-top like the genetic dwarf peaches. I think these are called brachytic dwarf, and have very short internodes but large leaves. Genetic dwarf peaches, in my experience, are very susceptible to peach leaf curl, although there can be strategies for that.
My understanding is that almonds are the earliest blooming among stone fruit trees. Do you think it would be worth the trouble here in the Portland area? Is it likely to get Peach Leaf Curl?
Since the start of this topic, anyone growing almonds?
I remember that DanielW and myself had a brief chat on this subject while waiting in the line for the scion exchange one or two years ago. Nothing new to report from me: I have two almond trees, Prima (Alenia) and Bounty from Burntridge, now reaching 10 ft tall. They have appeared healthy, bloomed nicely in the past two years, but no fruit so far. I am hopeful given that I saw the local Dessertniy (Burntridge listed it = Bounty) tree setting fruits well, as I mentioned previously.
In my place (southern Willamette Valley), the earliest Prunus to bloom is P. mume, followed by P. mume/P. armeniaca hybrid. Blooming is getting earlier and earlier in the past 10 years. P. mume started in mid-January which is one month earlier than 10 years ago. With many plums ready to bloom now, these two almond trees in my yard will not be earlier than most plums. I hope we won’t get any severe cold snap in later winter or early spring, like that one occurred in 2012, which could wipe out so many plants.
I have some nishiki from OGW, almost 10 years ago. I'm in NE Portland, on 9th ave, just south of Alberta street. They're in the hellstrip and they produce despite cars, trucks, backhoes and shopping trolleys running into them maybe once a year or so, and tearing the bark off of even the main stems and trunks. I also have a bounty that has not produced yet; It is blooming lots right now, for the first time. Unfortunately last year the squirrels figured out that they can eat the nuts and they got over half of the almonds. I've noticed that if I don't water them, they don't produce. I'm a rookie so that water = nuts bit above may be obvious to most of you, but I'm still learning, and enjoying it loads.
Greg: I am worried that your nishiki might be soon to become a dead tragedy some day because I can't find it offered anyplace anymore. Think about grafting it into your bounty that is better protected from all the mechanical damage before it's too late. It also might be possible to use the krymsk-1 rootstock offered by HOS. I think in the worst case imcompatability scenario that an almond will still survive the first year on a plum and long enough to provide life to a scion to graft to the bounty almond next year.
I would just hate to see you lose any ability to fruit any other cultivar (ie. bounty) when the damaged one you have (nishiki) works.
Keep us posted for the results of how "bounty compared to nishiki" responds in your location down the road for us. 🙂
I had a self pollinating almond, got it here in Oregon, but I think the place morphed, or went out of business. Can't remember its name.
Anyway, I sold the place and moved across the street (better house) and recently the tree was cut down, but the root stock seems to sucker everywhere over there. Right now, it is all cut down, but I can watch and dig some up, next time I see some. It was a semi dwarfing I think. The tree got about 15 feet tall, at most. Don't know what the root stock is either. I planted the tree in the wrong place, so it never did well. Its been 20+ years, close to 25, when I planted it.
Hi Greg,
Welcome to the HOS forum.
I would think that in your urban heat island, it would be easier to grow subtropical plants than in the country. I remember many people growing palms in the urban core that couldn't grow them outside of the city.
There is a large almond tree in an undeveloped park near my house. I gathered many almonds from it. It does have some disease, but it is doing ok and producing. It seems to be very old. I think it was an orchard, and then someone donated the land to the city for a park, but the city hasn't developed a time table and funds to develop the park.
John S
PDX OR
All my almonds were producing, although I had to leave town in July and when I returned end of September all the almonds were gone; I assume they dropped off from lack of watering or the squirrels got them. All my almonds are oozing some kind of stuff that usually comes out of those bacterial? canker looking places on other trees. But on these it comes out of what to me are random places, and, oddly, out of the almond / almond shells themselves. It's like clear pectin or oozy, sticky jello.
Almond update:
This pictured almond tree that I found today has kind of started scattering along the sidewalk. I picked up several and removed one kernel which was actually quite tasty. Almonds typically give me quick throat sensitivity or allergy, but this didn't.
The first link from my screen credits google for showing from 2007 to modern history (ie. a picture in picture indication of tree size) and of what to expect for an almond tree when *"space is limited";
*John S post #4
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