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Rocky Mountain Medlar (Bundle of 2) | Spring 2027
$99.99
Reliable shipping
Flexible returns
Ripening
Will it finish before your first hard freeze?
Check it on the Ripening Map (opens in a new tab)
Disease resistanceNot tested yet
- ? Fire blight : Unknown, no published data yet
Scored 1 to 5. Higher resists better, and ? means no published data yet.
See it on our unusual fruit disease chart (opens in a new tab)At a glance: Rocky Mountain Medlar is a medlar tree rated hardy to zone 4 in our ratings (winters to -30°F), and self-fertile, so one tree can crop.
| Also called | Medlar (Mespilus germanica) |
|---|---|
| Hardy to | Zone 4 to 8. A bare number means the whole of zone 4, colder half included (winters to -30°F). Find your zone with our cold hardiness calculator. |
| Chill hours | About 300 hours (200 to 600). Our estimate. No published figure exists for this variety yet. That's low, so chill is never short here, but it can wake early in a midwinter warm spell. Check your chill hours or see our sources. |
| Pollination | Self-Fertile. Bloom group 4 of 7 (mid), late spring to early summer here. Medlar is self-fertile, so one plant will fruit on its own. Its very late bloom helps it dodge spring frosts. Bloom group is our estimate from the variety's origin and relatives. Pollination Charts. |
| Good for | Jams and jellies (7/10), ornamental value (6/10), cooking and roasting (6/10). Scores are our own 1 to 10 ratings; 8 and up makes our Best Of lists. |
| What you get | Bare root, 2-4 ft or 4-5 ft. Shipped or picked up in Missoula in spring, roots wrapped in moist sawdust. Guaranteed to bud out. |
We are temporarily referring to this is Rocky Mountain Medlar. Our friend Abe Coley at Mountain Time Farm started these out from seed about 5 years ago. We got some from him and grew these out another year.
These have proven themselves in a colder spot of Missoula in the Orchard Homes part of town where the frost settles. Given that they have withstood several of our test winter events at -30F, these are fairly hardy seedlings.
More info Coming
Representative photo of medlars (a Russian medlar at the USDA collection), not our Rocky Mountain seedlings. Photo credit: USDA-ARS National Plant Germplasm System, National Clonal Germplasm Repository, Corvallis, Oregon, accession PI 686873. Public domain (U.S. government work).
Additional photos: “Mespilus germanica 2024-09-24-3” by Renée Kools, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY 4.0; “The medlar tree” by Tony Hirtenstein, via Flickr, licensed CC BY 2.0; “Mespilus germanicus” by Michiel Thomas, via Flickr, licensed CC BY 2.0; “Medlar - fruit de trou de cul” by JC Merriman, via Flickr, licensed CC BY 4.0.
Questions we get about Rocky Mountain Medlar
Does Rocky Mountain Medlar need a pollenizer?
No. Rocky Mountain Medlar is self-fertile, so a single tree can set fruit. Medlar is self-fertile, so one plant will fruit on its own. Its very late bloom helps it dodge spring frosts.
How cold hardy is Rocky Mountain Medlar?
We rate Rocky Mountain Medlar hardy to zone 4, which means winters down to about -30°F. Our ratings come from real winters at our two Montana sites and from trusted growers across the North, not from a catalog average.
How many chill hours does Rocky Mountain Medlar need?
About 300 hours of winter chill (we count hours at or below 45°F), likely somewhere between 200 and 600. Nobody has published a chill figure for it, so that's our estimate from its relatives and origin. Medlar needs fairly little winter chill, roughly 200 to 400 hours. These are seedlings, so individual trees can vary. Our chill hours guide has a calculator for your winters, and our research page lists the sources.
What is Rocky Mountain Medlar good for?
Our top use scores for Rocky Mountain Medlar are jams and jellies (7/10), ornamental value (6/10), cooking and roasting (6/10).
What arrives, and when does Rocky Mountain Medlar ship?
A dormant bare-root plant, roots wrapped in moist sawdust with a vapor barrier, shipped or picked up in Missoula in spring. Sizes offered: 2-4 ft or 4-5 ft. We guarantee our plants bud out. Stone fruits can be slow, so if one still has not budded out by August 15, write to us and we credit you for the following spring.
Is Rocky Mountain Medlar disease resistant?
We don't know yet. Nobody has published solid disease data on Rocky Mountain Medlar for fire blight, so we list it as unknown instead of guessing. That doesn't mean it's weak. Plenty of the plants we grow have never been through formal disease trials. Our unusual fruit disease resistance chart has every rating, the notes and the sources.
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