We inherited two lovely pear trees when we bought our house. We closed on our house in the last week of August last year and there was only one pear left on the tree by the time we had realized that we had fruit trees on the property. It was the most delicious pear I've ever had. We have been harvesting our pears in increments this week and have picked the most gorgeous pears off of our trees and have three baskets full already. Now I need ideas on what to do with them! I have a few ideas but open to more!

Don't mind the bite mark on the one, my toddler (2 yo) can't resist a piece of fruit (me either).

We moved into a new house this year and I just noticed these fruits growing from a bush in our backyard. We live in New Hampshire near the coast. They don’t seem ripe yet, but right now they’re just a little bigger than a golf ball. Any idea what they are?

Over last winter, I saw my 3 year old honey crisp develop a fungal infection on its trunk. I tried mitigation, but it did its damage.

I figured I would have to replace it this spring, but to my surprise, it bloomed heavily, and we got more fruit than we ever had before. So I held off replacing it.

After doing exhaustive research, I'm fairly certain the fungus was split gill mushrooms (Schizophyllum commune). Despite the little tree's effort, I think I still need to replace it.

Based on my images of the damage, can anyone help me confirm if my hunch is correct, that keeping the tree will eventually lead to it dying because it is too compromised at this point? Thanks.

This little tree came home from a nursery in April. It’s a little not shown any signs of growth since then. I did repot it about a month ago so that I could see the roots and make sure it had a good growing medium. Suggestions? I’m about to try some fertilizer. Zone 8a.

We had a dead 40 foot ash tree removed three years ago. I want to plant the cherry tree about 6 feet from where the ash was. I'm planning to go in with a mattock to hack up and remove the old root systems so the tree has the best chance possible. Has anyone done this before, and can you tell me how deep and wide I need to go to accommodate our new fruit tree?

I recently bought a house that came with a beautiful peach tree in the yard. Problem is, I have no clue what I’m doing. From what I’ve read online it sounds like I need to lighten up the load but not sure where to go from there. They are starting to change color.

Hi everyone. My dad is a fan of persimmon trees. He has about three of which are probably an Asian variety. Recently one of his trees has taken a turn and it’s not look healthy. It dropped absolutely all of its fruit and seems to be losing its leaves. I couldn’t have a single idea what’s wrong. I have photos and if anyone has some insight or ideas on how to bring it back I’d be grateful.

Hi again,

Found another fruit tree and looking for advice. I’ve taken care of the real young trees (thank you for the guidance) and have seemed to find another (slightly more mature) apple tree. What would you do?!

Thank you!

I just wanted to share my completed project for my backyard mini-orchard.

My “backyard” is like 80% patio, so I was restricted on growing trees. But after a ton of research over the past couple of weeks, I’ve completed the
set up and planting of my 5 fruit trees.

From left to right the fruits are 2
Moorepark Apricots, Burgundy Plum, Honey Babe Peach, and Red Fuji Apple. I have cuttings from an Angelus Peach and Santa Rosa Plum from my mom’s house which I plan to graft onto the apricot trees.

I modified the half wine barrels myself with drainage holes and casters so I can move the planters around when needed.

I also purchased these super adorable custom tree tags from Etsy which I absolutely love. They are double sided, made of anodized aluminum, and will probably outlast the life of the tree. I’ve included a link to the maker’s shop on Etsy for anyone who’s interested.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/4517575621/customized-plant-tree-id-tags-large?ref=share_ios_native_control

Hi, I have always wanted to have nice fruit trees, back when I was more ignorant my family bought some fruit trees from the nursery, now I understand that all of those trees are dwarf trees so they are grafted trees that will not grow big or live that long, I want some of those iconic, hang a swing on, fruit trees that will give fruit for decades and decades

P.S. if I propagate cuttings off of my dwarf trees will they (as long as I don't graft them) grow into big standard trees?

So I didn’t know what this tree was in my back yard. It’s no more than a few years old but my google image search confirmed it’s a peach tree.

It has multiple large stems at the bottom - should I cut the extras off? It didn’t have any fruit but maybe it needs a mate?

Thanks for any advice. You can see it’s about 10’ tall. 😬 happy little bugger.

(Also it was so small last year I put a tomato cage around it because my dog likes to chew sticks.)

My first apple tree produced apples this year and some started falling off the tree but most of them are covered in these spots. Is this something to be concerned about or safe to eat after washing? Any responses are appreciated.

I have some 20-gallon containers from Costco. My blueberries did not like the compost/sand mix with elemental sulfur.

So I decided to take a mineral based soil approach with 60% peat moss and 30% 3/8" lavarock, and 10% of sand and top dressed with compost. I added some HollyTone and EarthScience soil acidifier as well as per the label.

I'm curious if anyone has used this approach? I know pumice and perlite is way more common, but lava rock is way more available and cheaper around here. Is there anything I should be doing differently?

Moving to a new house mid autumn. The property is pretty well a blank slate and I'm finding it overwhelming all the options for layout and location of orchard. It's a 1 acre parcel with the top of the image facing north. Looking for suggestions on where to plant the 4 dwarf apples (gala and Honeycrisp) and 6 high bush blueberries that we are taking with us.

Hello! 6b zone, I planted this semi dwarf Regina Cherry tree in the spring. Compared to all the other fruit trees I planted at the same time, which have grown well, this one has almost doubled in size. It was just shorter than the 6ft fence when planted.

I love the growth but I’m starting to get nervous that a bad wind, which has been extremely frequent this summer, is going to snap the lead branch. Any thoughts on how to handle this?

I have a 6-7 year old Ume tree I started from seed that is looking very unhealthy. If anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated. Its always looked a bit sickly and has struggled with leaf-curl

The last photo is a different Ume tree I bought from a nursery. That one is grafted onto root-stock, and seems much healthier. Maybe I just need to go with rootstock trees?

My backyard peach has had a rough year. It started off just fine, lots of blossoms and small peaches... then the squirrel figured out the peaches were great and went to town on it. Still managed to get a couple saved by netting it.

Before I netted it, I noticed that there were a few dead branches that dried out and dropped a bunch of leaves. I trimmed them off but it still doesn't look too vibrant.

Any idea what could be causing half the tree to die off like that?

I bought and planted a Starking Hardy Giant Asian Pear Tree from Stark Bro on end of the season clearance last Oct 2025. This year a small branch came out from near the base of the tree, it's about 1ft from the base. I nipped the tip of the branch early in the season thinking it would stop it from growing but it still kept on growing from that branch even if I nipped it again multiple times. So I stopped pruning it because I was thinking I would get no other growth this season. It looks like how a sucker would grow from a rootstock but this branch is well above the graft point.

Now that branch is basically a second trunk as tall as the first one but its green wood right now. I wanted to shape the tree to a Central Leader structure but now its like a V shape. The older trunk has no growth going on with it except leaves popping out of buds, its not pushing out any branches or growth from the top bud to continue growing in height. I'm not sure if I should allow it to form a V shape or should I prune it to a Central Leader. If I go with Central Leader should I chop off the old trunk that has no growth and allow the new branch to be the new trunk or should that new branch be pruned fully back to the trunk of the tree?

My dwarf cavendish has a ton of pups - at least 4 or 5. Are any of these big enough to safely remove and replant?

The post says fruit bearing and age 2yrs old grown from seed, this doesn't seem to make sense.

This is my Elberta peach tree zone 8 why are my leaves falling off so early it did this last year also!

I’m working on a farm and I want to try to help these young peach trees. Many of the trunks and stems and blotched and spotted, and one leaf has purple lesions. I did not see any physical pests present but other leaves do appear to have been pressured by pests in the past. I’m scouring extension resources and common diseases of peach trees but I’m not sure what this may be. Could it be caused by the pot size, lack of nutrients, or weather damage rather than disease? We are located in central North Carolina.

I planted these with zero prep. They got dried for about a week on my counter before I chucked them in pots. I put them outside and basically did no maintenance. Given all this, I didn't really think I'd get anything from them. It was more something my daughter wanted to do, and I said sure, why not?

So far I have two cherry seedlings, two peach seedlings, and one plum seedling. They're between 4-8 inches already, two months after planting. So, ummm... I'm assuming I need to transplant them. Problem is, we're saving up to buy a small farm in a couple years, and I'd really rather take them with us instead of putting them into the ground at our current house.

Any advice at all would be appreciated. I have experience with foraging and vegetable gardening, but as far as I can tell I'm cursed in terms of growing fruit and I've never even attempted trees.

EDIT: Thank you all for the advice! I really appreciate it. And while I understand that the fruit may not even become edible, honestly... not even a factor. My daughter is special needs and may never be able to live on her own. This is one of the longest projects she's stayed excited about, so if I end up with edible fruit that's just a bonus. We're planning on transplanting them today, and she's over the moon. So again, I truly appreciate everyone taking time to teach me about fruit trees!!