It’s a mystery: rows of trees laid out in neat grids in places that seem ideally unsuited to orchards. Dry places. Grit-instead-of-soil-underfoot places. And yet, rows and rows and rows (and rows) of trees that look a lot like fruit trees. Here’s a tiny sample, caught in passing at 75 mph.
We’ve seen these unmarked fields in southern Arizona and Texas. They can’t be fruit trees, can they? Maybe they’re nuts. Maybe I’m going nuts. This, right here, is exactly why we need more interpretive signs along highways. Enquiring minds want to know.
But as often happens, one enquiry leads to another. If they *are* nut trees, what’s the name for the collection of them? As we flash past rows and rows and rows (and rows) of what look like fruit trees, I consider and reject several options.
Orchard? Meh. Too fruity.
Farm? Double meh. Too croppy or animal-y.
Plantation? Too cotton-y.
Grove? Too olive-y.
Ranch? Too silly.
The next time two required states intersect–one physical (I have easy access to a computer and wi-fi) and one mental (I remember this question)–I contact the hive mind.
What *is* a collection of nut trees called?
Good news, bad news. There is no shortage of answers: definite but diverse.
Depends on the nut: hazelnuts grow on bushes, not trees, and bushes don’t get a nice group-planting term. That I know of.
Pecans and walnuts definitely grow in groves.
Another possible word is “plantation”
Nuttery is the term you’re looking for
Almonds definitely can be grown in an orchard: Almond Orchard Development
Nuts that grow on trees are grown in quantity in orchards: see the full definition of ‘orchard’ at Merriam-Webster. (Ed’s note: MW also thinks that sugar maples grow in an orchard, and this is Clearly Wrong, so take the nut thing with a grain of salt.) (OK, maybe not.)
Me, I’d opt for nuttery, but the too-fruity orchard seems to carry the day with those authorized and paid to opt. Although maybe not for pecans and walnuts–which definitely grow in groves I’m told–and maybe not for hazelnuts–which grow on bushes, which don’t get a nice group-planting term. That I know of. Yet.
They don’t share the general appearance of the fruit trees I’m used to seeing. Whatever they are, they all seem to have been trimmed to that shape. Are those sprinkler heads in the ground near the trunk of each tree ?
Ralph – Well, they might be sprinkler heads. I’ve never seen them in action. I had assumed some form of drip irrigation. And no, they don’t look like fruit trees, do they?
Driving north up I-5 from Christine’s place near Sacramento, I pass miles and miles (and more miles) (even kilometres, I suppose) of flowering trees in rows and rows (and rows). I thought they were cherries. Christine says they’re almonds. Short of stopping the car at the side of the interstate to walk into a field and examine the trees personally (and risking a visit by a state trooper) I’ll have to be content with an undefined but beautiful view.
Jim T – I’d go with Christine’s judgment, at least on this matter and under the circumstances. Better to avoid interstate complications of any sort. 🙂 Here’s a link to an article on California almonds. They have their own named “trail.”
They are pecan trees deliberately planted, which makes them an orchard in our terms but, a grove in local terminology, I think. It took me months after I moved to the South to find out what those stands of trees that looked to me like Dutch elms were doing because the could not have assumed such regimentation unaided.
My favourite memory of pecans is a gift one of my husband’s graduate students sent to me: a dulcimer for which he had built a plywood box with supporting blocks to hold the instrument safely, filled with pecans from a tree in his front yard (Texas, at that point) so that the dulcimer could not rise out of the blocks. I had a year’s supply of pecan pies for the shelling. And music.
Laurna – Good heavens – that’s quite a gift! And yes, “elm tree’ is what comes to mind for this grove/orchard.
This is definitely a nutty dilemma!
Tom
Tom – 🙂
I too wish there were more explanatory signs in this world. “Enquiring minds want to know.” (At least the tabloid got that right.)
Judith – The tabloid being right in an “even a stopped clock” manner? Maybe. 🙂 I often wonder about construction/development. They quite often give the company’s name as a form of self-promotion; they identify the intended result a little less often.
We’ve seen quite a lot of these pecan groves/farms/plantations on our drives around, but mostly south of, Tucson, but always in the winter so they’re barren and brown like in your photo. I’d love to see them leafed-out and blooming, or laden with nuts. Pecans are my favourite nuts … pecan pie (insert gif of Homer Simpson drooling).
Marion – Yes, in-bloom would be fabulous, wouldn’t it? I’ll have to check the timing – it might be a tad hot for me, rather like when most cacti bloom.
Perhaps not fabulous the way you imagine. Almond trees, as Jim Taylor reports, are beautiful the way peach, cherry, plum, and apple trees bloom with colourful flowers. The pecan trees, which carry both sexes within the plant, sprout trailing male green catkins with a dusting of yellow pollen that is wafted by the wind to the clusters of tiny female green buds. The edible nuts form from those buds. The results are sumptuous but the spring mating event is green on green on green, which would take a discerning eye and a camera on stilts to record. The trees can grow to 100 feet in height.
Laurna – Green-on-green-on green? That settles it. I’m coming home on time. 🙂
Rats! I was going to guess aliens but I guess the pecans win!
Mary- 🙂 Always good to let others weigh-in first . . .