Kathy, I'm doing the same sort of thing here in suburban Maryland near Washington DC. I've been at it for about four years. Your biggest problem will be the apples and all the stone fruit, with sour cherries being the least troublesome of these. You will have to fight two major insect pests: plum curculio and oriental fruit moth. There are plenty of posts on these pests on garden web -- see especially Jellyman's and Scott Smith's posts, as they live in northern Virginia and Maryland and have a lot of experience. You may also have disease problems to deal with -- rot on the stone fruit, perhaps scab, fire blight, or cedar apple rust on the apples. Picking disease resistant varieties can help here; unfortunately there are no varieties resistant to insect pests. Your other fruits should be far less troublesome. Your main concern will be keeping the animals -- especially birds and squirrels -- off them. Netting the fruit is the solution unless the plants are very large. You will also need to make sure the soil the blueberries grow in is kept sufficiently acidic. And do not fertilize them with regular 10-10-10 or other standard fertilizers; if you use synthetic fertilizers, ammonium sulphate is good or you could use fertilizer formulated for acid loving plants like Azaleas. The Asian fruit trees -- jujube, persimmon-- should be pretty trouble free. Some other things you might consider growing: gooseberries, mulberries, elderberries (not for fresh eating but make good wine and a very good cordial that protects against colds).

That's a beautiful bush, Lilo. If it's never trimmed, does it just keep spreading and getting taller? In my area of WV, 'Redbud' trees/bushes grow along the side of the interstate; at least that's where I see them. They just finished blooming, last week. The flowers last for about two weeks and they're a lovely sight. The funny thing--to me, anyway--is that they're called 'Redbuds', but the flowers are a deep fuschia!, just like the little 'purple finches' have deep red breasts.

Hi tricitiestn: A friend of mine - to whom I recommended V. dentatum Indian Summer™ - went googling and found this thread, and noted that I had contributed information. She suggested I take a look. I left this forum (GardenWeb) in 2006, when it was under previous management and not exactly the most user-friendly environment. Still, lots of good viburnum information was generated and shared - and carried forward lo these 15 years! I appreciate that you and others find value in it, keep these threads alive, and add to the overall community knowledge. I like your list, and think you ought to keep punching it up. I wonder if we have conversed on forums on other sites (DG, NGA) where I frequent these days. Same screen name, same irascible but focused commentary. You will note in those older posts that both Kevin and I had listed some very young/very recently acquired plants, and noted that those selections had not yet settled into our growing zone and climate variations. We also noted the obvious: sometimes you get mislabeled plants! Many gardeners know the disappointment of buying, planting, and waiting for that odd variation of the common to grow and bloom - only to find that it was an imposter and no different than what you already had. Caveat emptor, I think. I found, not long after the posts above, that my plants labeled Chicago Lustre and Autumn Jazz were reversed - and that enlightenment came about by continued conversations with authorities like Gary Ladman, Kevin, and other viburnum enthusiasts. The common denominator is that we want to get it right while providing positive factual information about these clones that come from all kinds of different provenances, That way, gardeners can wade through the hype of sellers and glean actual performance information from fellow gardeners, and hopefully in as similar a circumstance as possible. Other changes since this thread started: great growers like Roy Klehm who trialed and selected so many of the treasured selections on this list - are no longer in business, and many/all of his named selections are no longer regularly available. That is tragic. Gary Ladman is no longer the young pup he once was (who is?), and being out in Nebraska makes it tough to widely disseminate his great plants and voluminous knowledge of the genus. Kevin no longer resides in west suburban Chicago, and that is a great loss to the upper Midwest gardening crowd. He is now in the hinterlands of the Appalachians, not particularly far from tricitiestn - which means that they will cancel each other out with redundant information (!!!). Actually, he is so glad to be growing in a balmy climate that he is transitioning into all the evergreen and south of zone 7 species that he routinely killed up in zone 5. I guess I alone am the constant, the touchstone, for the central KY Bluegrass country in the zone 5a - 6b range of the Ohio River valley region. -30ºF temperatures in early 2015 rocked the decades-long collection of plants here at Viburnum Valley Farm, and a couple of severe droughts afflicted those stressed plants that survived those severe temperatures. Ice storms and snow loads, cicadas and other biblical plagues have also taken their toll. Still, the test is the point. What I enjoy daily around these 10 acres that I've cultivated since 1990, are the stalwart citizens of my plant world that I will continue to expound upon on forums like this. There are new selections that continue to be added, and mature residents will pass on to the great compost or brushpile in the sky, to be renewed in the vascular systems and bloom clusters of future viburnums. I hope all here, and generations to come, will continue to contribute their experiences and opinions; listen, process, and evaluate writings of others; and keep seeking more information to grow more plants successfully for improvement of our landscapes and overall environment - and inspire succeeding generations to do more of the same. ViburnumValley

indigo (indigofera), passiflora incarnata, echinacea, great blue lobelia, hydrangea 'Limelight', Japanese anemone 'Windflower', nepeta, calamenthe, scarlet runner beans, aster 'Ghengis Khan' (this false aster blooms non-stop from early summer until frost as long as I keep shearing spent blooms), roses: 'Pilgrim', 'Tradescant', 'Peggy Martin', glossy abelia (hummingbird & butterfly magnet). Monarda is starting its second flush. Garden phlox 'David' and 'Franz Schubert' are looking awfully tired after all the heat, but still a little bloom coming. Salvias should be on second flush, but I cut them back late. Hosta 'Guacamole' should be blooming now, but is a bit too shaded this year as the magnolia has grown ... time to move it. Chelone 'Hot Lips' and sedum 'Autumn Joy' will soon be in bloom. In dappled shade, fern-leaf bleeding heart (dicentra eximia) is putting out new leaves and will soon have its second flush of bloom. All of the above are pink, lavender to blue, or white, with the exception of roses 'Pilgrim' (pale yellow) and 'Tradescant' (deep red), monarda (red), and the scarlet runner beans which are, of course, scarlet. I don't have one, but I see that the crape myrtles around here are all still blooming vigorously.