Native Edible Orchard

Why these six go together

This is an orchard that needs no spray program, because every plant in it evolved here with its own pests and predators. The harvest runs from late summer into November: hazelnuts and black chokeberries in late summer, wild plums and pawpaws from August, persimmons after the first frosts and pecans in the fall. Pawpaw gives the largest native fruit in North America, custard-sweet; persimmon ripens sweet orange fruit once frost has softened it; the plum makes the jelly; the pecan is a northern-adapted line that ripens thin-shelled nuts in a short season.

Between them the six also feed wildlife on the same schedule, so expect to share with the birds, foxes and squirrels, and plant enough to have a crop left.

Where it fits

Full sun for the pecan, persimmon, plum and hazelnut; pawpaw and chokeberry take light shade, and pawpaw is happiest as an understory tree, so it can go in the shade the pecan will cast. Ordinary soil suits everything here; persimmon and chokeberry take dry ground, pecan and pawpaw like it moist. Together they are hardy in zones 5 through 8.

The pecan becomes a 70 to 100 foot tree and wants the deepest, sunniest ground and 35 feet of room; persimmon reaches 35 to 60 feet; plum and pawpaw 15 to 30; hazelnut 8 to 12; chokeberry 3 to 6. Plum and hazelnut sucker into thickets, which is what makes them a hedge.

Planting the orchard

Plant dormant, cage everything against deer and rabbits, and water weekly through the first summer. Most of these fruit better with a partner: pawpaw needs two unrelated trees, persimmon carries male and female flowers on separate trees, and plum, hazelnut and pecan all set more with a second plant nearby, so plant two or more of each. Chokeberry fruits alone.

Chokeberry bears in its second or third year and plum within three to five, pawpaw in five to eight, persimmon at about six, and the pecan last, at roughly ten. Prune only to shape, in late winter, and leave the fallen leaves under the trees.