Tour Edgewood-Stillings on 9-Jun-19

MTCA Tour 9-June-2019 (click on photos to enlarge.)

Aaron Parker’s home at Edgewood Nursery in Falmouth, the first part of the tour.

The Invitation. Join us for a great double tour to start the season off! We will meet at 10:30am at Edgewood Nursery to see and discuss a small but very diverse collection of tree, bush and vine crops, including paw paw, persimmon, yellowhorn and several other usual trees. This planting ranges from 1-12 years old. At noon we will carpool 1 mile down the road to the home of Bruce Stillings where we will see some more mature trees, several of these trees are exemplary specimens listed as state champions in the Maine Register of Big Trees. Species include apple, pear, English walnut, black walnut, and mulberry. When we return to Edgewood plants will be available for purchase.

Tour Description by Aaron Parker; photos by Aaron Parker, John Stoltenborg,

A view of one of the gardens at Edgewood Nursery.

We had a great double tour to start the season off! We met at 10:30am at Edgewood Nursery . . . . to see and discuss a small but very diverse collection of tree, bush and vine crops, including paw paw, persimmon, yellowhorn and several other usual trees. This planting ranges from 1-12 years old. At noon we carpooled 1 mile down the road to the home of Bruce Stillings where we will see some more mature trees, several of these trees are exemplary specimens listed as state champions in the Maine Register of Big Trees. Species include apple, pear, English walnut, black walnut and mulberry.

The crew looking at a multi-graft mulberry.

Yellowhorn (Xanthoseras sorbifolium) blooms. When they open they are yellowy-green, after a few days they become red.

This yellowhorn is only 2 years old from seed, after the tour I noticed another one from the same seed lot with a bloom on it.

Siberian pea shrub. Kids are sampling the tasty edible flowers.

A small section of the gardens at Edgewood Nursery.

Plum patch.

Garfield Plantation Pie Cherry, very productive and reliable.	Szukis American Persimmon.
Aaron’s original design of a “permanent” plant label. The post is a ripped down scrap of composite decking with a 45 cut on both ends. The sign is held on with a 1/2″ stainless truss head screw.	Aaron explaining how he made the plant label from vinyl house siding.

Part 2 of Today’s tour was to the home of Bruce and Susan Stillings in West Falmouth. They graciously walked around with us and show us their many ancient trees and told us about the history of the farm. Most of the nut trees were planted in the 1930’s and several of them represent the largest known specimens of their species in the state. Details of each tree in a caption with the photo. One plant I didn’t snap a photo of was a large bed of old peonies, in the 1950s the farm grew a large selection of peonies which were harvested daily, stored in the ice house and sold in the markets in Portland and Boston. Most of the fields have eventually succumbed to grasses, but the Stillings maintain a few large diverse beds to keep the varieties alive on the farm.

State champion English Walnut (Juglans regia), fruit ripens around the end of August. Nuts where described as being much like a walnut from the store, but a bit smaller. Crops most years, but the squirrels get most of them. Planted c. 1930.

Chestnut, likely a hybrid. No signs of blight. Crops most years, although nuts are quite small. I will be collecting leaf samples to get a better ID on this tree.

State champion Apple and a grafted clonal backup. This tree is likely over 200 years old and represents the last remnant of the original tree plantings that where made when this early 1800’s house was built. It has been identified as a “Ben Davis” by John Bunker.

Our hosts and stewards of the trees, Bruce and Susan Skillings.

Despite being over 200 years old, this “Ben Davis” still crops annual, Susan said it hasn’t missed a year as long as she has been there, more then 30 years.