James - if you ever trim that Nicole, I’d love to get a scion or two. I’d be happy to pay for it and/or pay for postage - whatever you prefer. I have a Tropic Gold (which someone seems to have researched as a sport of Blenheim) that I wanted to graft a branch or two of Nicole (and other good Apricots for SoCal) on to.
Update on 3/17/24:
Apples:
Anna Apple - 100%
Pluots:
Flavor Queen - about 5-10%
Flavor King - about 10% (small branch)
Dapple Dandy - about 5-10%
Plums:
Satsuma - also about 5%-10%
Spice Zee Nectaplum (on citation, not doing well as a tree): about 50-75% (very few buds/growing points in total though)
Santa Rosa Plum: nothing yet.
Peaches:
Branch of Saturn Peach: has only a few buds and a big cluster of them are open. Very pretty flowers.
August pride: 100%
Mid Pride: 100% though very few buds due to severe pruning needed due to various issues.
Apricot:
Tropic Gold Apricot: First few blossoms opening as of 2 days ago.
Persimmon:
Fuyu Jiro: Nothing yet.
Pear:
Tennosui: Nothing yet.
Tropical:
Sapodilla (Hasya): just bought in a pot from the nursery. Has a bunch of flowers and some tiny fruit.
Bearss Lime: heavy bud set and some are “popcorning” and opening.
Cara Cara Orange: bud set.
Pixie Mandarin: bud set.
Meyer Lemon: bud set.
Mangoes (small plants): starting to leaf out but cold nights are causing some new leaf growth to burn out.
Guavas: Nothing yet.
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I bought Snacktime 2.5 years ago from Burchell. In coastal West LA, the tree is the most vigorous growing tree I have planted next to SpiceZee Nectaplum. Right now it is blooming heavily (just like SpiceZee), & I expect I’ll need to heavily thin.
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Nice to hear that. Do you know what rootstock it is on by any chance? Do you fertilize?
I think I have an extra from ReallyGoodPlants
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Extra Nicole scion? Let me PM you.
Royal Lee in foreground and Minnie Royal in the background, showing peak bloom and good overlap. There are microclimate variations up to a week in my yard.
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Double Delight lives up to its name. Great appearance flowering, and high flavor. Known for low chill requirements.
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Gold Dust: not traditionally known to be low chill, but produced well in my yard early, and the flavor was amazing. It was definitely one that never makes it into the freezer.
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Lola nectarine from Arboreumco produced its first year in my yard. Pure yellow classic nectarine with amazing flavor. If its productivity is good over time, this would be worth growing.
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Snow Queen is one of my last nectarines to flower most years. But this year it is right on the heels of midseason.
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Kaweah and O Henry peach are flowering. The buds are more sparse this year. It produces very well every year so far but the fruit are small. This is common with high chill cultivars in low chill San Diego. They will still produce, but I am not sure yet they are the best pick for our climate. If you want to experiment, maybe graft them first on a later flowering tree like Red Baron. Liz Late flowers profusely and is starting now. It will fruit profusely but they will be inferior. I probably wont keep my test graft. Indian Free has a similar story though the fruit is somewhat larger. Red Baron and August Pride are flowering now also, but they produce larger fruit.
Mostly what I got out of my high chill peach experiments in San Diego is that you can push climate limits and get fruit, but most of the time the fruit you get are not of the same quality that earned the cultivars their desired reputation.
There are some exceptions among other stone fruit, eg Moorpark apricot gives scant crops that are nonetheless outstanding.
There may be opportunities to use a high chill peach and really thin aggressively and maintain high quality.
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Arctic Glo is in a tough part of the yard with lots of root competition and poor soil. I suspect this will be a good nectarine for others. Once I get my tree healthier I think it will produce better.
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Peacot, showing its low chill bona fides with what looks to me like a very heavy fruit set. This one needs to be sold in nurseries again. Great peach, and so far presenting as productive in San Diego.
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Sugar Twist pluerry at peak bloom. A graft of Flavor King coming into bloom, as is a graft of Nadia. On another tree, Beauty graft is coming in.
I am settling on Flavor King as my main plum/pluot crop. What I do is I buy patented trees so I get the variety in my yard, and then I partially topwork them to Flavor King. I suspect I will get better and better productivity as I do this. It will overcome bloom overlap problems. It also will overcome the pollinizer compatibility issues.
Studies show that cultivars with 2 different S alleles different actually produce better compared to cultivars with 1 of the 2 being different (same allele pollen gets rejected by the pollen tubes).
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Does this mean that Snow Queen is higher chill than all the other peaches/nectarines that preceded it in blooming?
For me Snow Queen flowers anytime from the last week of March to the 2nd or 3rd week of April (for peak flowering. It does sometimes have scattered bloom. If I were judging by that I would have thought it was high chill. But the fruit quality is outstanding and some in So Cal (like Greg Alder in Ramona) report getting fruit every year.
Bloom time comes from winter chill, photoperiod, and heat (to trigger the bloom). The trees sense night length and they time the season based on that.
I think Snow Queen has a later photoperiod trigger. I am curious when it blooms for people in colder areas? For me it is as if Snow Queen waits for the vernal equinox (March 22) and then blooms either immediately, or within a few weeks.
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Agree, Snow Queen has outstanding flavor. It does well in my yard. As it matured, it seems more cold hardy than it was rated. I planted it in north side of the house, it blooms overlap with the rest of the peaches(within less a week), not significant delays or ahead in blooming in normal years.
My Snow Queen ripens relatively early, ahead of Reliance, near end of July/early August, depends on the weather condition of the year. Of course, I love over-ripe peaches, so most times I probably let hang on the tree too long. It does not seem to drop its fruits in hurry
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In areas with long winters and plenty of chilling, pretty much all peaches, nectarines and pluots bloom within a 10 day period.