Farmer Shell, I'm in your neighborhood, I think (Christian Co., KY)?
Fruit & nut trees have been my hobby/obsession for 25+ yrs. I've planted - and killed - a bunch of stuff over that quarter-century. Let me preface it by saying... I don't have, and never have had, time or inclination to spray anything... so, if it can't get by with a minimum of care, it ain't gonna make it here. YMMV, and willingness to do multiple insecticide/fungicide sprays will broaden your opportunities.
Here's a quick synopsis of my experiences...
Stonefruits have been mostly a bust here. Forget apricots... they'll break dormancy in Feb/March... no way they'll escape frosts; same for pluots. Peaches/nectarines... you might get a good crop two years out of five, but you gotta spray for plum curculio and brown rot... and thin the crop religiously & ruthlessly. Euro & Jap hybrid plums were a waste of space... only the native Chickasaw plums(and a few named selections of them, like Guthrie) have been worth the space.
Sour pie cherries, like Montmorency, will do well... sweet cherries, like Bing, etc., don't work here.
Apples... we went overboard early on... had 60+ varieties at one time... many unsuitable for this area, and without multiple sprays, most won't make an acceptable fruit, so I've removed or abandoned most of them.
MonArk has been a top performer... best early season apple I grow...ripe in early to mid July, firm crisp tart flesh, good for fresh eating, cooking, drying, will keep 6-8 wks under refrigeration without going mealy. Stayman Winesap is good, and even without sprays, fruits are OK, but you'll have to 'eat around' the occasional 'worm'. 'Lunchbox apples'/edible crabs, like Centennial, Kerr, Bastian Orange, and Almata do well here and are TASTY!!!
Any apple or pear ripening after about mid-Aug here will be consumed by deer, crows, European hornets long before they have a chance to ripen, so I've pretty much abandoned any late season/winter-keeper apple varieties.
Pears... low care/no spray, top performers in my orchard. Fireblight-resistant varieties are a must... Bartlett won't last long here... FB will eat its lunch. Most of the 'Southern' pear types, like Kieffer, Orient, Pineapple- and other 'sand pear hybrids' will do well, but European types, like Seckel, Warren, Ayers, Harrow Sweet are good. Love my Asian pears... Chojuro is tops, Ya Li is good, Shinko & Hosui have done well here; folks rave about Korean Giant... and I'm trying it again... just has not been good or sufficiently FB-resistant on the two previous grows.
Persimmons are no-spray, low care... Prok, Yates, Early Golden and the newer selections out of the Claypool & Lehman breeding programs are hard to beat. Some of the AsianXAmerican hybrids, like Rosseyanka, JT-02(Mikkusu), NB-21(Sestronka), Kasandra, etc. are making inroads.
Pure Asian persimmons(D.kaki) are chancy... I've had a number of them through the years, but all have frozen out now. Saijo and Great Wall were probably two of the most cold-hardy here, but even those eventually turned toes-up.
Mulberries! No-care fruit! Great to eat, and tremendous 'forage' for chickens/hogs. Illinois Everbearing and Silk Hope have great flavor, big berries, and bear for ~6wks, from early June to mid-July. Every critter loves a mulberry... especially me!
Serviceberries... short season, but they were really 'on' this year!
Blueberries... easy, low-care, no spray. For us, Rabbiteye types are the bomb! Not as picky about soil pH and will produce 10X the fruit of the Northern highbush types we originally planted here.
I'll leave off now, but if you wanna talk pecans/hickories/walnuts... I'm always ready to talk nuts & nut trees!
Where do you order your trees from?
