Behnke's, as much as I love them, does not always have the best selection of fruit trees. I got my North Star dwarf pie cherry tree at a nursery in Olney -- there are several on 108 up there - and had a good selection to choose from. Denison's Nursery in Indian head also had a good selection of all kinds of trees, though I wasn't looking for fruit trees from them -- they feed the landscaping trade so if they have one, they'll have 20 nicely pruned specimens. My Fringe Tree comes from Denison's, as does my Brandywine crab apple.

lynn

Thanks, Lynn. I did a quick web search and none of the Olney nurseries that came up seemed to have anything but ornamental trees. Some places just had Google maps listings and no web site. Do you remember any names? I'd love to find a good place; I was a bit spoiled in Berkeley, where there was a huge selection of bare-root plants plus a wide variety of every kind of fruit and vegetable from two big nurseries. I'm surprised to hear Behnke's doesn't have a great selection.

And of course, if you've had great success with any particular type of fruit tree, please let me know (sounds like maybe you like your North Star cherry?).

I'm sorry to say that I would reconsider peaches. I took my alberta peach out after 5 yrs. They require too much care in our climate. Japanese beetles love em and so do borers and diseases. I don't like my dwarf cherry tree either because the Japanese beetles tear it up.

But that's me

I have Asian pears, a seckel pear, American persimmon, blueberries, apple, muscadine, paw paw and I just planted a fig. I don't grow anything that requires heavy maintence as I don't use pesticides. The apple is the most difficult of all the fruits I grow. There are good years and there are bad but the apples are never perfect.

The Asian pears are the easiest...well, after the paw paws which are no trouble at all. I'm told that the Asian persimmons are better (tasting) than our native one. Btw, I planted my persimmon in the spring of 2004 and got my 1st persimmons this fall. OTOH, my little fig tree produced 3 fruits while still in the pot. Out of 5 pear Asian pear trees, also planted in '04, we've had no more than a dozen pears thus far. The trees were in 3 gal pots when we bought them.

I should mention that I planted a kiwi about 5 yrs ago and have not seen a single fruit. The JB like kiwi too but not too bad. Anyway, it has one more summer to produce fruits or it's history.

You might want to check out the fruit & orchard forum here at GW. There are many serious growers there from our area.

Here is a link that might be useful: Fruit & orchard forum

Have you tried Edible Landscaping? He has a great catalog and was at the Wash Home & Garden Show at the downtown DC convention center last year - I bought blueberry shrubs from him there.

In my experience, peaches and apricots need to be sprayed religiously to be productive in MD. Cherries, pears and apples should thrive with judicious spraying.

I wish there were better local sources- I ended up ordering all my fruit trees from Stark Bros.

I prefer to buy by mail order and my favorite place is Henry Leuthardt in Long Island. Good prices, beautiful plants. One thing that you can do better with than in Berkeley is apples. IMHO the better tasting ones need more chilling than you can get in Berkeley. Esopus Spitzenberg does well here (the nursery around the corner from me grows it) as does Cox Orange Pippin - 2 of the best tasting apples ever! (and I've tasted probably 100 varieties that conventional producers like Behnke's never heard of).

Also I don't know what you mean by mid-sized trees, but semi-dwarf (no more than 12') are really the way to go - easier to prune and harvest and spray (I grow organically, but there are organic sprays, too).

BTW you can grow indoor citrus here. I had 13 oranges last year...

Here is a link that might be useful: Henry Leuthardt

I also buy from Edible Lanscaping and container citrus from Four Winds. There's a small nursery on Good Hope Rd near the intersection at Briggs Chaney Rd. that sells some nice grafted fruit trees, persimmons, cherries, Asian pears, citrus and some others. He has some plants that you won't find at the local nurseries. I buy and trade plants with him often. It used to be called Good Hope Gardens but the owner had to change the name because he was constantly getting confused with some religous organization. It's now something like Landscape Art. He'll probably reopen in March. If you want exact directions just send me an email. It's only about 15-20 minutes from your home.
Karyn

I bought nearly all my fruiting plants from Edible Landscaping. (in person) I live an hour west of DC so Edible Landcaping is only a 2 hr drive for me. They're located in Afton Va, a beautiful area just outside Charlottesville. It was a great experience to visit their nursery. I got some really good deals too by going there. I was able to buy some plants that hadn't been potted into larger pots yet.

Their nursery has some beautiful (in ground) specimens and they're all organic. They encourage you to eat whatever you want.

Asian pears, persimmons (totally trouble free), sour cherries, fig (must be in protected area though. Pears yes, apples may be, sweet cherries yes. Now this is if you want to grow without spraying.

Washington Gardener just put out a new ENEWS and in it is a new local fruit tree source -- maybe worth checking out and seeing who carries them locally:

http://archives.zinester.com/85920/152956.html

Another vote for edible landscaping! I don't like to spray anything--ever, so I have given up peaches, cherries, apples, and plums. Perhaps I just didn't find the right varieties.

I grow Asian pears. Hosui is the best tasting. The only oriental persimmon that is old enough to fruit is an Ichi, highly recommended. I have 2 Brown Turkey figs that are monsters. No one ever told me that fig trees could get so honking huge! The quality of the figs is highly dependent on the weather. Sometimes they are diehappy delicious, other times not.

Not a tree, not on your list, but try high bush blueberries. You won't be sorry. It took the birds in my neighborhood years to learn that they were good to eat. Now we do have to net but it is worth it.

I'm in Vienna, just West of DC.