Shay:

I can comment on a couple of your items. First, Triple Crown is a dynamite blackberry that will hold up without the slightest difficulty in full sun in Louisiana or anyplace else.

Second, the best source for pawpaw stock in the country seems to be Peterson's pawpaws. Peterson is a real specialist, and you can find him on the net. I don't know why you don't trust yourself to install a bareroot pawpaw tree. I trust you. Bareroot is the best way to plant fruit trees of most types. Just don't let the roots dry out in the sun. I don't grow pawpaws myself, but am aware that they do need some shade protection, especially in the first few years, and will grow well in partial shade throughout their lives.

If you want to grow blueberries they should be rabbiteyes or southern highbush. I don't know that they need shade so long as you keep the soil around them evenly moist.

If you like zebra swallowtails you should live here. We are overwhelmed by them nearly all summer long. I am constantly removing them from the greenhouse to return them to freedom.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

I have bought and grown raspberries and blackberries in bare root form and in small plants form. The ones I grew bare root were by far the stronger. It's a little disappointing at first, waiting for bare roots to take off, because you can't see what's happening and you are left in suspense. And if they came with any leaves on them, those leaves will probably fall, too, before you get any indication the plant will thrive. But they seem to do better in the medium-term because in Rubus, the root is where most of the action is. Once the plant starts to get new leaves, it does very well and spreads quickly, sometimes with new runner plantlets.

In contrast, the small berry plants grown from tissue cultures that I have planted have grown VERY slow to the point of mounting frustration. Arapaho, in my case. I have heard other people complain about Arapaho on here. I wonder if that might be more because Arapaho is sold as a tissue-culture plant rather than bare root, so it doesn't get the same kind of start. The nice thing about plants, though, is that you can see real leaf and green stem growth from the beginning.

I just got my first Triple Crown Thornless bare roots in the mail from Stark's today. I was too busy today to put it in the ground, so I'm going to stick it in a bucket and start soaking it after I get it off here. A little after midnight, heh. :)

If you have the RIGHT catalog (the one for "Valued Customers!") Triple Crown is marked down from $11.99 to $8.99 for a package of three.

doof:

I would not soak those Triple Crown plants more than about 15 minutes. Soaking is an unnecessary technique. Leaving them in their nursery wrap until planting is better, if it is slightly moist.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Eh... already did it. They got about 12 hours of soaking before I planted them, today.

I was a little disappointed in the look of the canes. One was a little squishy at the top, which is not good. But it's hard to say that bare root berries ever look "good." Now the wait begins.