The Pink Pearl

Nick and I went with some friends on a local winery tour last fall, and at one of the tastings there was a selection paired with apple slices that were such a bright pink that I thought maybe they'd been soaked in wine. I asked about the variety and was told it was a "Pink Pearl."

The inside of a Pink Pearl apple

After doing some research and finding they aren't very common to find for purchase, obviously the answer to this problem was to grow our own tree. There weren't a lot of places online that carry the variety and those that do appear to sell out quickly, so I put in an order right away.

The place I purchased my tree, Bay Laurel Nursery, doesn't ship right when you order. They allow you to select delivery date ranges in the early spring based on when the best time to plant is in your specific zone, so the tree arrives near the end of its dormant period and ready for transplant.

There was a slight delay in getting my tree as UPS fucked up and delivered to a completely wrong address several miles away, where some jerk signed for it even with the wrong address and name. On their third attempt to retrieve the package, UPS finally succeeded and got it to me--5 days late. I was worried a bit about it being in the box for so long, but since it was dormant, it was fine.

The area I chose for this tree is this little cove in the most south/eastern corner of the back yard:

Before

When we bought the house, the above is what this area looked like. Right off the photo on the left side is the east fence gate, and to the right is the house. This space wasn't being utilized well. A couple random tree seedlings were coming up, there was a large bush of dead grasses of some kind, and a cute but overgrown non-deciduous bush that I haven't identified. The latter was close enough to the house to be out of the way and nice enough to keep, but the tree seedlings and dead grass bush had to go.

At some point over the winter I took the hand saw to the seedlings. I also removed the random chicken wire and other junk. When the Pink Pearl arrived I prepped the rest: dug up the dead brush and pulled up all the long grass and ground covers. Nick helped dig up the roots from the previously-removed seedlings. After everything was cleared out I used the rototiller and turned all of the soil.

After

After moving the tree around to decide where best to place it, I dug a large hole and filled in around the roots. It's several feet from the fence on both sides so it should have plenty of room to grow up and out. With the sun high in the sky over the summer, it should have plenty of light where it is.  

Tree planted

There were a few fuzzy buds on this little guy when I planted it. I'll add some more photos when it has some leaves and blossoms on it this spring. It's only about 2 1/2 feet tall now, so I'm looking forward to seeing how much it grows. And maybe we'll have a couple of apples in the fall!