Bernandine from Mitre10 Mega Petone has gotten back to us about our fruit tree order. Some of these are unavailable. I have bold-underlined the confirmed ones, underlined the near-confirmed ones and italicised the unavailable ones on our original order. We need to make a decision about the apricots, hazelnut and pear,
1. Apricot 'aprigold'
2. Grapefruit 'golden special'
3. Lemon 'lemonade'
4. Mandarin 'miho'
5. Hazel nut ' whiteheart/alexandra' (double or single)
6. Almond 'manovale'
7. peach 'blackboy', (2nd choice 'golden queen' from Waimea)
8. plum 'black doris'
9. plum 'Greengage'
10. A double grafted pear
The citrus shouldn't be a problem.
Choices for Apricot:
Moorpark: Fruit has superb flavour, is soft and juicy and is medium to large size. Suitable for fresh eating, bottling or drying. A mid-season variety best suited to cooler climates.
Steven's Favourite: A very popular mid-season variety with particularly large, golden fruit and firm flesh. Suitable for both eating and bottling.
Sundrop: Excellent cropper with sweet and juicy yellow fruit with firm flesh over a long season. Partially self fertile. Suitable for many regions. Pollinator: Trevatt.
Trevatt: Large, sweet, juicy golden yellow fruit mid to late in season. Eating or bottling. Recommended for most areas.
[My comment: I believe sundrop is the tasteless supermarket variety,. I don't know much about the others but I would go for flavour, therefore Moorpark.
Choices for double graft pear:
Beurre Bosc/Packham's Triumph
Winter Nelis/Doyenne du Comice
Winter Nelis/Packham's Triumph
Taylor's Gold/Winter Nelis
Beurre Bosc: Superb quality eating brown pear with sweet and juicy large fruit. Regular and heavy mid season cropper.
Packham's Triumph: Super all purpose variety. Large fruit in mid-season and a good keeper. Heavy and reliable bearer.
Winter Nelis: A very good late eating pear with excellent storage. Small green fruit with reddish russet patches and buttery, rich flavoured flesh. Very hardy but best with warm site. A good pollinator.
Doyenne du Comice: Classic gourmet pear. Green skin flushed red with white, melting juicy flesh. Tastes like sweetened cinnamon. Mid to late season.
Taylor's Gold: Russeted Comice pear with sensational flavour. Later ripening.
I assume that their are no hazelnuts available otherwise she would have given us other options but have emailed her to clarify.
From the Waimea nursey nut list:
Chestnuts: 1002, 1015 [?]
Macadamias: TMac1, TMac2, Tmac217, T-1000
Almonds: All in One, Garden Prince - Dwarf
I told her we would decide within a week
Simon
Replies
I've just collected the apricot tree that was waiting for us at Mitre 10. It's a Sundrop. label says "excellent flavour", and it needs a Trevatt for pollination. I grew up with Moorparks in Otago, and suspect you're right about the difference.
There's a 20% off special offer over the next 4 days at Mitre 10. Who knows how much we have left to spend, and should we not just go before the working bee and get a couple more trees while they're cheaper, and while the weather remains cool & damp? I will do that if I get feedback about what to get, and if it's available. Charles mentioned macadamia.
I'd be happy with whatever you go with - but would agree on Moorpark. Taylors gold sounds yum (sensational!) but I'm not fussed. Anyway that's my two cents.
I agree another nut... again, not fussed....
Cheers :)
A macadamia
and I personally like the Bosc pears.
Apricot - Moorpark
Hazel nut - Lets go for the best macadamia instead (T-1000 sounds cool ... Terminator styles)
Pear - Beurre Bosc/Packham's Triumph