The Orchard Gnomon

The single most frequent cause of disaffection from backyard fruit growing: failure to grow. Fault, if available, could be thrown at many targets: some nurseries there be (not The Arboreum Company!) that ship bareroot fruit trees dry in Jiffy sacks, and at surface rates too. Trees are water-based life forms, and without contact with moisture at all times, especially while out of the ground, they will not survive. The same responsibility lies with the unwary owner opf a new fruit tree. Just as there is a duty to open immediately to check good condition on arrival, so too must one maintain the moisture of the roots until the moment of planting, but do not store in water. Bareroot stock does not put its life on hold while it waits in the garage for planting. Even during the planting act, roots must never be exposed to sun or air without a layer of water between - stand the tree in a bucket of water while you dig its hole. Water immediately upon tucking the tree into its new home, and keep watered thereafter.
The real issue is not whether the new tree ever produces new leaves, but whether it ever again produces new hair roots. Hair roots are white, fine, proliferous development out from the cut-off ends of your new tree. Typically, bare root fruit trees will commence to sprout hair roots as soon as soil surroundings reach a temperature of 45 degrees. F., or (around us) early February, whichever happens first. While sprouting these roots, trees consume water and carbohydrates stored in what’s left of their roots in the process, and can no longer reliably be warehoused. For that reason, nurseries avoid storing bare root trees for customers’ convenience. Instead, the proud new owner should receive and store trees at home - heeled in soft moist unfrozen earth, in moist sawdust in cellar or garage, or potted up, until the soil outside is receptive. It is important that the trees and their roots never freeze, and that the root hairs not be wasted.
The tree’s best hair roots are its first-produced. If these are lost, the tree will attempt replacements, but each will be weaker and inferior to the one lost and replaced. Eventually, the abused tree consumes what stored carbohydrates it had upon its new hair roots, with little left for top growth: leaves and stems. This is the usual cause of stunted growth in newly-planted fruit trees, usually seen of those purchased at end-of-dormant season sales. The Arboreum Company, of course, do not mail out end-of-season promotions. In extreme cases of storage dehydration, trees will produce some sprouts along the trunk, and these wizen and die. Upon autopsy, no hair roots will be found to have issued from the underground portions.

We frequently get inquiries about authenticity: “I’ve tried everyone else’s variety … do you have the real thing ?”

We like to think that the very fact that The Arboreum Company grows a variety, makes it the real thing. But humility aside, there is a problem with the vocabulary that must be dealt with first.

When speaking of certain of the most famous fruit varieties, it is necessary to clarify that it is not a single, but a whole complex of varying fruit plants, all together comprising varieties in a true sense, that pass as one.

Take for instance, the great ‘French Prune’ of Santa Clara Valley. French prunes were introduced into California from the traditional home at Agen in France on several occasions during the nineteenth century. This small purple plum used for drying has the habit of spontaneous bud mutation, so that collection of grafting scions from any tree may result in propagation of more than one distinguishable variety, or cultivar. Add to this the frequent occurrence, in areas of traditional culture, of seedlings grown from and more or less resembling a mother type, and it can be seen why there is no single, true ‘French Prune’ anywhere in California. All are approximations to a Platonic ideal Petite Prune d’Agen, which itself may no longer exist in its homeland.

The French national experiment station at Grande-Ferrade, near Bordeaux, attempted an encyclopedic collection of these different prunes of Agen, and assembled some thousand of such clones. The one most often grown in France now, numbered 707 at Grande-Ferrade, had no corresponding equivalent in California. So no one should be so foolish as to speak of the ‘French Prune,’ either in France or in California, for such a thing does not exist.

But wait … it gets even more interesting. Consider the famous apricot of this region. Is it Blenheim? Or Royal? Or Royal Blenheim? There is a variety of French origin that has been grown under the name ‘Royal’ since 1815. We grow it. There is a very different variety of English origin, grown under the name ‘Blenheim’ since 1836, or thereabouts. We grow it too. They are as distinct and as easily distinguished as any two fruits in our orchard, yet I know no one else who can describe the essential differences between them. ‘Royal Blenheim’ is an absurdity, at best a nurseryman’s fudge and at worst a misrepresentation of goods.

‘Royal’ is a wedge-shaped, slightly flattened fruit with soft and juicy but decidedly mealy flesh, not adapted to commercial canning because the outer edge of the fruit, opposite the suture, softens early and bruises during handling in bulk. It was grown largely in Los Angeles County up to the 1940s and was universally known there. As a result, just about any luscious apricot resembling it came to be called ‘Royal’ among Southern Californians. Fruits of ‘Royal’ have a very compressed base and narrow stem cavity, and only a light brushing of pink on the shoulder.

‘Blenheim’ (strictly speaking, ‘Shipley’s Blenheim’) is a shorter, blocky-round fruit with a pronounced “nose” at its extremity, and flesh that does not become uniformly soft, indeed it is quite delicious while still firm, even at that stage rendering juice when crushed in the mouth. It has a rounded base, frequently cracked, and well-exposed fruits can show large and brilliant red maculations. Because it remained firm, especially when handled in cannery lug boxes, it was the variety of choice for commercial canners. And so it was the classic apricot of Santa Clara Valley.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, nurserymen in California had adopted one or another of the several named bud mutations of ‘Royal’ and ‘Blenheim’ that had been observed in commercial orchards. These were noted for earlier or later ripening or greater productivity. We still grow the original ‘Luxembourg Royal’ and ‘Shipley’s Blenheim,’ but also the ‘Losse Blenheim,’ ‘Steindorf Blenheim,’ ‘Early Blenheim’ (Canadian White), ‘Autumn Royal,’ and ‘Redsweet,’ a red Blenheim.

In the apricot planting boom during the Great War of 1914-1918, nurseries sold out their inventories of ‘Blenheim’ apricots, and substituted ‘Royal’ to the unsuspecting public … they both ripened about the same date, and had comparable flavor. So began the confusion of the two varieties. Eventually, California nurseries quit distinguishing between the two, and many today (not us!) propagate their ‘Royals’ and ‘Blenheims’ from the same tree, without apology. Trees headed for Southern California are labeled and invoiced as ‘Royal.’ Those for Northern California are labeled and invoiced as ‘Blenheim.’ Beware anything labeled ‘Royal Blenheim’!

All of our varieties are grown and fruited to test for authenticity, long before we offer them to our public. Most everything we offer, we have grown for many years, and are quite possibly more familiar with more varieties of fruits than any other business or institution in the fruit trade.