Pears are the hardiest in Oklahoma; then apples -IMHO.
Keep cedars away from your apples - or visa versa :)
Cedars (Junipers) get this orange slimy fungus and it infects apples too. I've never had it on my trees, but have seen it on other peoples apple trees and have read about it.
Other than watering them when it is dry weather and once a year piling on steer manure under their drip lines (or you can use those fertilizer stakes that you pound in around the drip line), I don't have to do anything else with mine and I get yummy pears and apples in the fall.
Ordering them through one of those mail order catalogs which are also on-line now is the best way to go. You usually can get a better price and at least a better guarantee that you are getting what you are paying for. When I buy a Gala apple, I don't want to find out five to ten years from now that I bought a McIntosh apple instead. That really burns me about WalMart and Lowe's in Stillwater (and elsewhere). I've had much better luck with plant purchases from Atwood's. If it was a little flower I'd say take a chance, but fruit trees are a big investment in money and time. ~ Annie

Well, first of all, plant what y'all like to eat!

The hardiest fruit trees in our part of the state (I'm in southern OK) are the native persimmons and plums as both survive severe droughts. The native plums have small fruits suitable only for making jam or jelly. Native persimmons are very astringent but aren't bad after a frost or two has blackened them.

Peaches, pears, apples, plums, apricots and cherries all grow here and they all have their problems.

Apples and pears probably produce a good crop better than most other trees, but they are prone to fireblight, which can take them out (and often does) about the time the are large enough to bear fruit, which is very frustrating. There are some that are fireblight resistant, but none that are immune.

Peaches, plums, nectarines and apricots (stone fruits that have a large pit or seed inside) are very susceptible to freeze damage. They bloom after reaching a certain number of chilling hours every winter and, if those chilling hours are reached earlier in the winter, they can bloom "early" and lose their flowers or fruit to "late" freezes.

Cherries have the same problems as the stone fruits, although Montmorency seems to produce better than most others. I think I've heard some people say they have had good luck with Bing cherries.

Here's some of the varieties that do well in Oklahoma:

APPPLES: McLemore (fresh eating, cooking), Gala (fresh eating), Jonathan (fresh eating, cooking), Red Delicious (fresh eating), Golden Delicious (fresh eating, cooking) and Fuji (cooking).

YELLOW PEACHES: LISTED IN ORDER OF RIPENING: Candor, Garnet Beauty, Sweethave, Earliglow, Rubired, Sentinel, Redhaven, Clayton, Cullinan, New Haven, Ranger, Glohaven, Jayhaven, Loring, Cresthaven, Brisco, Jefferson, Autumnglo, Ouachita Gold, Stark Encore, Parade, Flameprince and Fairtime.

WHITE PEACHES: LISTED IN ORDER OF RIPENING: Erly-Red-Fre, Summer Pearl, Nectar, White Hale

NECTARINES: LISTED IN ORDER OF RIPENING: Earliblaze, Redchief, Cavalier, Sunglo, Redgold.

PEARS: L INDICATES LOW FIREBLIGHT RESISTANCE, H INDICATES HIGH. Some are from Europe and others are from Asia.

EUROPEAN: Bartlett (L), Bosc (L), D'Anjou (L), Magness (H), Moonglow (H), Warren (I don't know if it has high resistance to fire blight or low to moderate resistance, but is is self-fruitful and doesn't require a pollinator), ORIENTAL HYBRIDS: Orient (H), Kieffer (H)
There are some Oriental or Asian non-hybrids but they lack fireblight resistance.

CHERRIES: Montmorency is the best here. Others are Bing, Stella and Northstar.

PLUMS: EUROPEAN: Stanley, Bluefre, President; JAPANESE: Methley, Bruce, Ozark Premier

And I didn't mention figs, but lots of people have them here.

Most fruit trees give you a crop fairly soon. I bought peaches and plums from Lowe's in what were probably 5 gallon pots and they gave us fruit the second year after we planted them in early spring. A Redhaven we bought for my dad in February (from Lowe's, in the same size pot as ours) gave him about a dozen ripe fruit that first year. With peaches, plums, nectarines and apricots, you usually get a good harvest by the third year the tree is in the ground. Maybe someone else will tell you how long it takes pears and apples because I don't grow them here because of the fireblight issues and cedar apple-rust.

Good luck,

Dawn

I hope you like spraying insecticides on a regular basis. We've grown apple and peach trees and if you want any decent fruit at all it requires use of insecticides on a regular basis. This is a warm growing climate so all those nasty "bugs" have 2-4 generations a year to infest your tree and it's fruit. Then of course be prepared for the wasps, flies and other critters (rabbits, mice, deer) that will come if you leave any fallen fruit on the ground. The peach trees weren't too bad because our late freezes usually got most of the fruit, but the apple tree produced bushel baskets of wormy fruit every day for a month and it needed to be dealt with regardless of the heat or other weather going on. How many pies, cakes and cobblers can you bake and eat or freeze? I now let the professionals handle these problems. But I will say that for an Apple Tree, our Golden Delicious was a very good one. You could eat the fruit alone or use it in cooking. It did have a little rust, but it was the bugs, the mess and "not another basket of those @@!!**&& things again" that finally led to its demise.

Lovethempokes,

I have not experienced the same problems with fruit trees that Mary has, and that is to be expected, as we all have different growing conditions. In the gardening world, we often express the fact that different people face different conditions and use different methods and have different success rates by saying "your mileage may vary".

I only grow peaches and plums in Oklahoma, but I do so organically, not spraying them at all. I've never had a unmanageable pest problem on the trees or the fruits, and I seldom spray anything except organic Bt for caterpillars.

There are different ways to do things, and growing organically works for us on the peaches and plums, and on blackberries as well. In Texas, we also grew Granny Smith apples and Orient pears organically.

I have a neighbor who has two apple trees that he knows only as "cooking apples" although to me they look like they may be Fuji. His only "pests" are raccoons and deer, which he keeps out of the apple trees by playing a radio placed in the tree 24/7.

I have another "old farmer" neighbor who grows apricots, peaches, plums and cherries and gets a great crop of each. Some years he does use a chemical thinning agent to thin the fruit, but other than that, he never mentions spraying pesticides (and usually if he is spraying something he tells me about it). He used to use chemicals a lot, but for various reasons he seems to use them less and less every year and still has successful crops. Some of his trees are ancient for stone fruits--over 35 to 40 years old--and still healthy and fruitful.

So, I mean no disrespect towards Mary and her comments, but just want to point out that there are those of us who do grow fruit successfully without regular pesticide application and without severe problems. There also are folks here who do use chemical pesticides and have success using them. It is a personal choice.

You won't know if you can grow fruit successfully until you try. Even though I prefer an organic program myself, I used to grow them chemically a couple of decades ago and can advise you about spraying schedules if that is the route you choose to take.

I love fruit fresh from the trees. They are just so luscious and yummy. Easy? Not necessarily. Worth it? I think so. You DO have to deal with a lot of ripe fruit at once, but it isn't so bad. You just eat all you can, freeze, dehyrate and can all you want, and give away the rest. Or, if you get a lot, you can sell it at your local farmer's market. You also can give excess fruit (and veggies too) to your local food bank. I usually give my "excess" peaches and plums to a neighbor, and he gives me his excess apricots and cherries. What a good deal for both of us!

I love having fruit trees, AND if I had to use some non-organic methods in order to get a good crop, I would because it still would be worth it to me to have the pleasure of growing our own. I have to be honest and tell you that any given stone fruit tree is likely to only give you a good crop about once every three years because of our late freezes, but if you have several trees of different ripening dates, you usually get fruit from at least one of them in any given year.
Your milege may vary.

Dawn

Just found this thread...

what is the best variety for cooking apples? I got 6 bushels from a neighbor last year and they Canned beautifuly and tasted great but he does not know what variety his tree is.. but he did not spray at all and just sprinkled fertilizer around the bottom of the tree every spring and fall... and it had GORGEOUS apples and no bugs im hoping i get the same luck at my house!

i am in Far NE OK and want to get 2 different varities of Apple and 2 of pear and 2 of peach.. Though the jap beetles will probably give me a run on my peaches.

Annie, the best peach tree for OK and probably everywhere else is the intrepid...this is because the blossoms are designed (bread) to withstand the late freezes we get in ok. I have three of the intrepid trees and get about 400 peaches from each tree. I should thin them back even more. They start with about 800 small peaches each year. Wonderful tree. The first 3 years I had no trouble with mold or bugs but the last two years these have taken about half of the fruit. I am still trying to figure out how to deal with these challenges. But I love my fruit trees. Although I buy full size trees, I keep them pruind to 7 feet tall. I also recommend the oriental persimmon trees, the Itchy and the Fuyu and both good. Those are great because the rippen in mid to late october. When everyone else is through with fresh fruit in august you are still picking fruit in October. I have had good luck with the Starbros online catalog. I have tried several other peach trees and they are OK but not as reliable as the intrepid. I have never missed a productive year in over 5 years. Good luck.

We planted an Asian pear at my son't house 3 years ago and it had 20 pears this year. He has lots of new trees planted in the last 3 years, but has an older apple tree that has an enormous crop every year. He doesn't spray, but does (or did), have a raccoon problem.

Something different and native would be the Pawpaw. Like an Oklahoma bannana mango custard fruit. Very tasty, nutritious, and not something you are likely to find in stores. Also another great tree that I enjoy although it is a nut and not a fruit would be the almond tree. All-in-one and Hall's hardy seem to be the most successful that I have seen.