The Plants

Trees

All six fruit trees were planted in spring/summer of 2020, purchased at Thiesen’s during their end-of-spring sale for between $50 and $60 each.

Montmorency cherry Prunus cerasus (second tree, just north of driveway)

The tree produces large, light red fruit (although some trees produce a darker red fruit) and has been cultivated in the United States since at least the early 20th century. It is the most popular sour cherry in the United States and Canada, and is extensively used in cherry pies, as well as in jams and preserves. This is the first of the two to produce ripe cherries (mid-June), with the Sweet Cherry Pie tree a week or two later.

Apple Trees

Generally speaking, apple trees need a pollinator flowering at the same time. The four varieties overlap from one to the next, with an early-blooming variety at one end, a late-blooming variety at the other end, and two mid-season trees in the middle.

Kindercrisp (first tree south of driveway)

KinderKrisp is a small but very crispy and sweet red apple. While the fruit may be smaller than Honeycrisp, it is by no means small on flavor. This selection allows apple aficionados of all ages the chance to savor the unique “Honeycrisp- like” flavor that KinderKrisp offers several weeks before the Honeycrisp crop is even ripe.

Honeycrisp Malus pumila (second tree south of driveway)

The honeycrisp is a relatively new hybrid cultivar that was covered by a patent through 2008, bred for taste and eating raw–it’s crisp, sweet, and tart. It’s also the biggest of the four–we’re not sure what we’ve done differently or what’s made it fill out so much more than the others.

Sweet Sixteen (third tree south of driveway)

Fireside (fourth tree south of driveway, next to alley)

This little guy is hanging in there. It was planted in June of 2020, but unlike the other three apple trees, wasn’t protected by the neighbor’s garage when the derecho made a mess of eastern Iowa. During the strongest winds, it was bent down almost flat to the ground, and lost a few branches and most of the apples on it at the time. Since then, it has lagged the other trees in size, while still bearing a decent amount of fruit each year.

The Fireside variety was introduced in Minneapolis in 1943–the name a reference to FDR’s fireside chats. It’s the last of the four to ripen.

Eastern American Black Walnut Juglans nigra (west side of house, near neighbor’s driveway)

This tree, located on the west side of the house, started off as a volunteer likely planted by a squirrel or chipmunk in between several trunks of an old lilac tree. The lilac tree hadn’t been maintained, and had lots of dead limbs. As we pruned back the lilac, it became obvious that the walnut was better suited to the location, and in competing with the lilac developed a nice, straight trunk.

Garden Boxes/Bags

The evergreen shrubs that fill the lengths of the garden boxes are Green Mountain Boxwoods purchased at Conifer Kingdom, planted in 2020. We chose this particular variety because it is sufficiently cold-hardy, slow growing, and will mature at 2-3 feet tall and form a continuous, low-maintenance hedge.

In the tall boxes at the corners, we periodically rotate in various flowering plants, mostly perennials, that spend the rest of their growing season either in the mulched area just south of the sunroom or in the back yard.

West Side

Along the west side is a rose bush planted by a previous owner, along with several hostas north of the side door. South of the side door are two clumps of bearded irises, that usually flower in May.

Rear of House

Below the primary bedroom window you’ll find a row of day lillies that bloom for most of June. The rest of the back yard is a blank slate, with a well-established (mostly) weed-free lawn. If you let the grass get a little long, you’ll notice small leafy plants, a remnant of the trumpet vine that nearly swallowed the original shed on the property.