We found male Asimina triloba flowers and brought them to SAFF to hand pollinate what we believe is a clonal colony of nearly 400 trees of varying sizes. We had maybe 50 or so female flowers that were ready to receive pollen today.
We were able to hand pollinate the old colony pawpaw trees at the bottom of SAFF. Notably, this is the first time with novel dna so we hope they set fruit and stay put instead of dropping early as in prior years when we pollinated them from one tree to the next not knowing they were a very old clonal colony all arising from a large root system with identical dna.
It was raining lightly and getting cooler while over there in the forest. We also shored up the tiny house as the rain began and worked on construction of temporary stairs out of concrete blocks.
A ladybug and an ant crawling from a flower with pollen from the pawpaws stuck on them. They’d fallen asleep in there together and came out groggily leaving in separate directions. Off to pollinate the highest flower buds we hope! We saw lots of tiny flies and insects in the pawpaw patch. We hope for success with pollination. We dream the pollinators will spread the novel dna from pollen outside of the clonal colony to the highest reaches of our Asimina triloba canopy down there. Some of the trees are about 15 feet tall and we couldn’t get to the buds to hand pollinate.Before we built the temporary stairs from concrete blocks. We will get a pic of stairs when we’re out next. It was hard to climb inside! 😂
We want to write a children’s book about the ant and the ladybug.🐞
We finally got it on the pad.Brian backed it down the driveway.
We met the designer and builders and Brian, the tow truck driver yesterday morning at 9:30 am in Troutville. It took us a while to get everything loaded up and ready for traveling to Buckingham County. We were nervous and excited. The most nerve racking part was whether or not it would fit under the train trestle with 13 feet and 4 inches of clearance stated on side.
The builders of the tiny house, Taylor and Kaitlyn, followed us to be sure it fit under the trestle that had been lowered after they built it.This is just after Brian left with the tow truck.
It took two hours for us to drive to Buckingham. We went about 45 mph with the house. Once we got to the farm, it took about an hour to get it into its place. We are going to head back over today. We have to finish leveling it and shore it up against the weather.
The beginning of the journey was clearing this 13 feet 4 inches train trestle and we all cheered as it passed through.
We trimmed the driveway up to 13.5 feet to accommodate the new tiny house being delivered.
We spent the weekend taking down and processing the large paulownia trees up top in the main clearing. They loomed over the driveway and pad where we decided we’d place the tiny house. It felt like we were dismantling a giant whale carcass. These trees were messy, seedy and dropped limbs off during any storm. They take over native forests and choke out beneficial plants and trees for our Virginia wildlife. They were very fast growing as well which is why we put off cutting them down. They were a big bunch of hard work!
The truck parked in the spot we cleared for the tiny house this Wednesday. It looks so much better without the paulownias. We are pleased with our decision.The first paulownia tree we cut down earlier in the week and then came over Saturday to cut it into smaller pieces. This was the largest. It took all of our Saturday farm day. Hole in the middle of the paulownia is not a sign of disease but an inherent characteristic of the Paulowniacea family of trees. It is called pith and creates a water highway for the tree to support its rapid growth. This hollow bamboo structure runs the length of the trunk. This is one way this tree can take over quickly. Similar to ailanthus, Callery Pear, Mimosa and White Mulberry in its destruction of forests in the eastern US. Kudzu in tree form. The second and smaller of the two paulownia trees we took down and cleared it yesterday (Sunday). We are going to need a wood chipper! Paulownia tree debris around the pad. We will find a use for these logs. It is lightweight and fire and rot resistant. We picked a lot of great walking sticks and fishing poles out of the rubble and sorted into useful and non useful piles. We brought the long dead pieces home to use as fire starter. They burn for a long time and are as light as paper. It’s really very interesting wood. Too bad the tree isn’t adapted to playing nice in our environment with its native cohorts.
We stayed focused on creating our space for the tiny house for the most part, but ran down to the old colony pawpaw patch last night just before leaving SAFF for the weekend. The buds are still tightly closed. We are happy with the slow moving progress of the buds as we have only found female flowers out in the wild so far. We continue to look for the older male flowers with pollen. We will use this to pollinate our female flowers when they open. We are watching the pawpaws develop along the Rockfish River on our drive to the farm and we see them covered in buds. They are all still female with green flowers instead of more purple male flowers that face downward.
Female flowers at Edible Landscaping on Saturday in Afton Virginia.
View of the clearing and pad without the paulownias.
Asimina triloba buds still dormant despite the wacky weather.
We drove over to Buckingham County yesterday to pick up soil test kits and drop off paperwork before heading to SAFF. Spring has sprung in many pockets of Virginia with purple flower buds emerging from red bud trees and bright yellow forsythia and daffodils blooming. After the deep cold snap, it appears we’ve made it and the weather will keep warming up from here.
Peach tree blossoms at Edible Landscaping on Saturday in Afton Virginia.
On Wednesday, the day before, we drove backroads down through Lexington’s Maury River and Kerrs Creek Virginia. We drove further down through George Washington and Jefferson National Forest through creeks and hollers down to Troutville. It was beautiful and we kept our eyes open for pawpaws the whole way. We went to look at a tiny house that we’ve decided to buy and place at Saint Andrews Forest Farm so we can spend part of our time out there.
Victorian tiny house built by engineering students during the early days of pandemic.We will have to finish the inside and make a few fixes but we are excited about the possibilities.
So yesterday we went over to SAFF and decided we would place it on our pad just off the driveway up top. We took down one invasive paulownia tree that would interfere with our plans. We have a few more trees to cut down to make a safe space for the tiny house.
Finally this paulownia is down. It was a job. Now we have to get it out of the way.
Pear tree blooming at Edible Landscaping. The smell was indescribably pleasant and sweet. We would have spent the rest of the day right there if possible.
We drove over late yesterday afternoon to check the status of their flowers on the Asimina triloba, pawpaw, trees at Edible Landscaping in Nelson County Virginia. This is one of our favorite places almost any time of year but it was especially enchanting yesterday. The flowers were blooming on many fruit trees and bees were buzzing hungrily. The pawpaws were just about to open on a few cultivars—namely the Sunflower, Shenandoah and Allegheny with some blooms starting to open and others (like ours in Buckingham County at SAFF) are still small and tightly closed for winter. While they are fully closed they can survive temperatures as low as -25 degrees Fahrenheit. Once they begin to open like the flower below, they are hardy to 28 degrees Fahrenheit. This makes them susceptible to late freezes.
Shenandoah cultivar at Edible Landscaping and the clone of our own at SAFF. It was the first pawpaw we planted ourselves at SAFF. The outer whorl of petals can be seen opening.
When the flowers first open on one year old wood, they are in the female stage with a green, glossy stigma inside the petals. At this point, the stamen are immature, green and compact. After a few days, the petals turn wider and become more horizontal turning a deeper, purplish brown. The stigmas are no longer receptive and the anthers turn brown and release dry loose pollen. The pollen is light colored beige or yellowish and fine and dusty.
The Allegheny cultivar (parent clone of our Allegheny planted at SAFF on the Pawpaw Peninsula) with buds swelling but not yet opening like the Shenandoah above.
The Sunflower cultivar has been known to self pollinate. However most Asimina triloba need a second genetically distinct tree to set fruit. If successfully pollinated the green ovaries at the base of the flower begin to swell and develop into fruit. We’ve been staying on top of the weather. Hopeful to stay above 28 degrees wherever the flowers have opened. So far it appears Buckingham County will not drop below 28 degrees this season. Fingers crossed.
We got the new trailer yesterday. We are pleased with the look and feel of it. We will make good use of it at the farm. We plan to take it over tomorrow and begin transporting compost to the pawpaws.
Asimina triloba, pawpaw, spear like leaf buds and fuzzy round and purple flower buds staying tight despite the 80 degree days in Buckingham County Virginia last week.
Yesterday, we visited Saint Andrews Forest Farm to work on our road project. We are bringing the road from the main driveway to the old farm road on the north side, in order to use the tractor to access the new Pawpaw orchard we’ve planted the past few years. We will need it for everything —bringing trees, compost, compost tea, water and collecting and taking mulch to the pawpaws. So far, we have carried everything in backpacks and our wheelbarrow. Phew! We have road access already with the tractor to the south end and the Old native SAFF orchard. We just ordered a trailer for the tractor that will hold up to 750 pounds. It will come tomorrow and we will get out there to use it to transport compost to the SAFF old native orchard at the bottom of the main hill. We’ve been wondering if this orchard was planted and farmed by Native Americans in the area. Or if it arose from just one tree and is made up of clones. Or both. The trees look old. They could be hundreds of years old. While individual root suckers only live around 40 years, the clonal root system can live for centuries. One reason the trees aren’t producing fruit may be because they are all clones of one mother tree. This is most likely. They need novel dna. So that’s why we started planting new pawpaw seedlings and cultivars. These older native trees at SAFF have flowered in mid April in 2024 and 2025. The first year we noted 15-20 flower buds. In 2025, we had fewer than that with the drought and none of these produced fruit. After we hand pollinated both years, we got fruit to set but they dropped within a month or so. This year every tree that’s over 6 feet tall has dormant winter flower buds all over them. Hundreds of hopeful fuzzy little round nodes everywhere. We are beyond thrilled. An unexpected surprise!
Our plan is to ensure these trees with fruit are watered regularly during any dry periods and we also have plans to get compost to them this week. We are going to test our compost tea first to make sure it isn’t too acidic and doesn’t burn the roots. (Thank you, Judy! For the reminder 🥰) The fruit may drop as before and we still want to do all we can to keep them going. Each year they look healthier, greener and leafier. We’d love to get some fruit to taste and share from the native trees. It would be great to plant seedlings from our native fruit! We have never tasted any “bad” pawpaws so we expect them to be scrummy. We are hopeful they will be a fine representation of Virginia’s native wild pawpaws. This year we will collect some Asimina triloba dna from around our foraging areas and public parks and gardens in Virginia to increase the likelihood of fruit set. We hope this helps kickstart pawpaw fruiting at SAFF in 2026. We also just planted 53 bare root seedlings we ordered from the Virginia Department of Forestry. We picked them up in late February and planted them that same day in deep tree pots. They all looked great with long deep tap roots. They appear to be the same age as the trees we planted last year. (1 year)We will plant these year old seedlings at SAFF this spring or fall depending on the weather and how they fill in their pots.
The 180-200 seeds we collected from pawpaws last summer (primarily from the Sunflower cultivar at Edible Landscaping in Afton, Virginia because the late frost that melted off the flowers at all of our other foraging spots) have stratified and we will pot those up in June to plant in the ground at SAFF in the Fall of this year. We are eyeing some of the local master gardening sales and the Hahn Horticultural Garden sales (April 9th) coming up this spring for more opportunities to collect seeds and trees. We plan to also collect pollen specimen from multiple locations around Virginia. We plan to visit Blandy Experimental Farm in Boyce, Virginia to see and collect Virginia pawpaw dna for our SAFF tree project. They have a Mother’s Day Plant Sale on May 9th and 10th. We have been using sammich baggies and qtips 😀 to gently collect dna from the open flowers at SAFF in the old native colony of pawpaws. Last year, and in 2024, we used our SAFF native flowers only to hand-pollinate the trees, but also this year we have our baggies and qtips with us now so we will stop and collect dna from any pawpaws we find with open flowers. We will help the pollinators out while collecting novel dna to bring to our old native SAFF colony. We’ve noticed a lot of bugs gnats and flies in the woods already. Especially down by the main waterway where the old native pawpaws are and the creek has water flowing. We’ve noticed our native colony is usually the last to open its flower buds each year down in its sheltered valley by the waterway. We stopped by Edible Landscaping in Afton Virginia yesterday and they had buds about to open. We will stop over there again this week to check their cultivars and select trees.
We added two Russian cultivars of pomegranates to our fruit tree population. A Salavatski and a Lyubimi. Both cold tolerant. We will see. The curse and blessing of living so near Edible Landscaping in Afton, Virginia. There are many wonderful nuts and fruit trees and shrubs!
We’d like to also begin adding Spicebush, jujube and gooseberry to the new Pawpaw orchard we planted with cultivars, select seedlings and some native fruit collected from Rockfish River locations along Howardsville Road. We will spread the American Hog Peanut that grows in our native SAFF pawpaw orchard into the new orchard. It is a nitrogen fixer and curls along the old pawpaws helping to keep them fed. We will bring their seeds to the new Pawpaw Orchard at the bottom of North Trail to encourage the companion plants continuing beneficial relationship. We are looking for littlebluestem grass-seed to spread in areas with erosion on the south end and set back line and in the clearings.
The last fruit of the year for SAFF native American persimmons, Diospyros virginiana, are still hanging on waiting until the first frost to fully ripen and lose their astringency.
We went over to SAFF on Saturday to take a walk and get some work done. We checked on the persimmons up top and found one ready to eat. Most are still hanging on until after the first frost —which is more than likely tonight as temperatures are supposed to drop to 25F overnight, and flurries are expected. Brrrr!
We spent the weekend winterizing the farm and the house. We brought some small black cherry twigs and sticks for getting fires started in the home fireplace. They are nice to burn.
Chris’ mother, Judy, gifted us these southern live oak seeds she foraged in South Carolina this past year. Quercus virginiana. We planted 14 of them in deep tree pots with hopes of getting them planted in the ground at SAFF after a year or two. Since they are in tree pots, and the weather tonight will be very cold, we’ll need to fit them into a warm, snug spot and get them mulched in with protection or bring them inside until the weather isn’t quite so cold.Quercus virginiana, southern live oak, just planted this weekend for SAFF. We use mycorrhizal soil for planting our seedlings to enhance nutrient uptake, improve soil structure, increase drought and disease resistance as well as boost carbon content. The fungi secrete a substance called glomalin which increases organic carbon content in the soil. The fungi also extend the root system of the plant with fine filaments called hyphae. These access water and nutrients like phosphorus, zinc and nitrogen from areas the roots normally can’t reach.The fluffy deeper green moss at the top of photo is Broom Forkmoss, Dicranum scoparium. The leaf there on the right is Tribe Potentilleae of the rose family, strawberries, cinquefoils and allies. We cannot narrow it further until we see a bloom or fruit. The bottom moss that’s lighter green is Thuidium recognitum, Hook-leaved fern moss. The purple leaf at the bottom left is as yet unidentified. Carya cordiformis, bitternut hickory, is our most recent type of hickory observed. Most have to reach the age of 40 years to begin producing nuts. We may have an older one nearby we’ve yet to locate. We have deep gratitude for the older trees already producing nuts and are delighted to encourage these small hickories growth in the forest. These are the shortest lived of the hickories, living about 200 years. Mushrooms commonly associated with hickories are various Russula species, Cantharellus (chanterelles) and Grifola frondosa (Hen of the Woods ).The Three sisters are at the bottom of Ridge Trail near the main waterway. They are large white oaks, Quercus alba, reaching up like nature’s skyscrapers. There’s an American beech, Fragus grandifolia in the understory with leaves —yellow now, but soon they will be coppery brown and hang on through winter. The Three sisters are some of the oldest trees at SAFF. Every time we look at them and the other larger trees down by the waterway that weren’t culled with the rest of the older forest because of their proximity to the creek, we are reminded of exciting research showing that trees are interconnected through underground networks of roots and mycelium with mother trees ( like these) acting as hubs supporting younger trees with water and nutrients and more. We’ve noticed oaks at SAFF growing with chanterelles, as well as various amanitas and boletes.Ebony spleenwort, Asplenium platyneuro, growing with the hook-leaved fern moss.
We started our walk down Red Hawk Rd and made a new trail from the bottom at the roundabout to down to Fern Trail.
The drive over to SAFF was beautiful with fall color. We travel from the Shenandoah Valley over Afton Mountain through Rockfish Gap and Howardsville to Buckingham. We oohed and ahhhed the whole way. Here’s a quick video of Howardsville Rd.
31 seconds of trees putting on a colorful show. Sound on for beautiful jazz as well.
We unloaded the lumber we found at the Restore and checked out the pawpaw and fig trees planted up top. They have yellow leaves and are losing most of them. Then we headed down Red Hawk Road to get down to Fern Trail. We checked out the Rappahanock cultivar and the seedlings planted as well as the cluster of natives. Most have gone fully dormant for the winter, especially the native SAFF trees. A few of the cultivars and seedlings look great; fully leafed and deep green still. Gleaming. It’s more typical for them with the temperature and season to be dormant. We have not yet had a hard freeze in Buckingham, or in Staunton in the Valley—which usually frosts first. Once dormant, their watering needs will drop. Phew! 😅
Leucobryum albidum, white moss or white pincushion moss, is common here in the eastern US. It creates a habitat for amphibians, reptiles and insects, stabilizes the soil, retains water, cycles nutrients and contributes to carbon sequestration.
Along our walk we found white moss and strawberry euonymus (Euonymus americanus). We also went down to the waterway to check on this oak snag in the picture below. SAFF had high winds for several days and the last time we saw it, there was a bend and crack starting.
White moss beginning to grow.
SAFF old oak snag we check on regularly. It looks as though it will fall to the west towards the Pawpaw Peninsula.
Over an inch of rainfall last Wednesday and Thursday at St Andrews Forest Farm.
We were so pleased to see the farm on Halloween Friday after the rain last week. It has been dry with an elevated fire risk so the moisture was more than welcome. Oftentimes the storms will bounce right over the mountains and miss the farm so we were lucky it hit us. The Asimina triloba (pawpaws) we planted this year need an inch of water a week so the rainfall also meant we did not have to carry water to them. We would like more rain to come consistently and we’re grateful for any rain we get.
Angiospermae found in the Pawpaw Orchard. The single leafed plant in center is our third wild orchid we’ve found at SAFF. It’s called Aplectrum hyemale, Putty root or Adam and Eve orchid. We have only observed two so it is precious to us. Putty root comes from the sticky substance found in the root traditionally used to mend broken pottery. We hope to see it blooming this next year in May and June down at the bottom of North Trail. We found this old faded red Russula at the farm along with several puffballs on Friday. It’s just not the year for mushrooms at SAFF. We look forward to finding more next year. Pinus virginiana, Virginia pine, found all over SAFF. Quercus falcata, southern red oak, found along Three Pine Gully. The acorns of the red oak take two years to mature. The cap is the cup like structure at the base of the nut. Squirrels, deer and birds rely on them as a key food source.The lean-to with the roof on! Yay!!! Thank you so much for your interest. We passed 5 thousand views. 🤗
Shagbark hickory, Carya ovata, found along the south setback line.
We looked for shagbark hickories to harvest some bark to make shagbark hickory syrup.
Shaggy bark pealing off the tree in the older specimen. Carya ovata found along the southern set back line.
The bark, with exceptionally strong, hard and shock resistant wood can be used for furniture, handles and sporting goods as well as smoking meats. The nuts can be eaten raw or cooked. We watched members of the Cherokee tribe make a traditional kenuchi with Shagbark hickory nuts. The nuts can also be used as a replacement for pecans in recipes as well as made into a milk or syrup. They are nutrient dense with protein, healthy fats (omega 3’s) and carbohydrates.
Shagbark hickory bark we collected.Shagbark hickory nutsHoney locust, Gleditsia triacanthos, found at the culvert on the old farm road. Historically, those large thorns have been used as nails in construction. These trees are nitrogen fixers that help to replenish soil making them beneficial for agroforestry and land reclamation. The sweet fleshy pulp from the pods can be eaten by people and animals. We were delighted to find this tree and hope to find more. American persimmon, Diospyros virginiana, with fruit hanging on up high in the canopy.
We’ve gone out to water the newly planted pawpaws, Asimina triloba. They continue to do well. Chris has worked on the lean to and it’s just about ready for the roof.
The lean-to connected to the shed will ultimately protect our tractor from the rain and snow.
Saint Andrews Forest Farm 