Harcot
Goldcot
Harglow
Chinese
Tilton
Wenatchee Moorpark
If so, how are they working out?
Taste & harvest size?
I’d like to try some in 5b…
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i have brookcot apricot grafted on black ice plum that’s growing well. will add another pollinator next spring for it.
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I suggest you put you zone and your general location ( a county, a state) in your profile. It is helpful info so people can give you more suitable advice.
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5b NH
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Please put it in your profile, we can check it so you don’t have to post each time.
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I had harglow, it did as usual in NE- fruiting once in a while…
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Grew some of the trees on the list in Z6a. When I first started with trees in '08 I wanted lots of apricots. In 12 years, one tree produced a half-ass good crop 2 or 3 times. Every few years I get a handful here or there from other trees, some trees produce zero. I got rid of all the apricots and replaced them with peaches. Too bad I didn’t do it sooner.
If I had excess land, I’d still plant apricots and let them go. If I get some, fine. If not, then OK too. But land is at a premium here. Can’t afford loafers. The apricots in the store are nothing compared to apricots you grow yourself. They have devised a way to remove all taste and texture from store bought apricots. It is like eating tasteless rubber.
Growing up in L.A. we would get the first apricots in the stores around May / June. Even the green apricots I’d pick from an overhanging tree in the alley had flavor. Of course, this was way back, when we didn’t import garbage fruit from around the world. This was when store bought peaches had fuzz on them, fragrance and flavor and didn’t rot before they ripen.
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I say, if you want it, and have the space, just try it. I’m in 6b and manage to get good crops on most of my varieties. My brother is down the road and also in 6b and every apricot on him has died. We don’t know why mine are thriving and his are dying. Meanwhile he can grow many other fruits that perform poorly on my land.
Chinese and Hunza barely set for me, like just maybe 3 fruit on a five year tree. They were this stingy for multiple years. I get the largest crops on OrangeRed, Goldrich, Tilton. Moorpark and Puget Gold aren’t bad in terms of fruit set for me. First two are my favorites so far. I have Harcot as well and it’s stingier than the first two, and less tasty. Tilton is productive but the taste is not the best. More for processing I suppose. Try OrangeRed and Goldrich. So far they’re my favorite by far and I have a lot of trees.
I have Hargrand, another from the “har” series. It is a lottery in zone 7. Mediocre harvest ať best - if it’s lucky enough to flower between frosts. The fruit is harder ( 
), with more acid and less flavour than our early varieties. Good for canning or freezing, though.
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I have been growing fruit trees in the Black Hills of South Dakota for 15 years, and have tried about 10 different apricot varieties including the Harrow varieties. In most cases the first winter kills them off. Our winters are milder here than the rest of South Dakota, usually about -15F is the lowest temp in the winter, but we have a lot of freeze and thaw.
I ordered Tomcot from Jung Seed 3 years ago, and it has done much better than the others. It has been through 2 winters with small amounts of winter kill. No blossoms yet, but we had 3 nights in a row of -25 below last winter which killed a few apple varieties that I had grafted. But Tomcot did well.
I did protect Tomcot last winter by wrapping a 3 foot high by 2 foot diameter fence around it and filling it loosely with garden refuse. I am not sure how much that really insulated it from the cold, but I think it helped protect it from the sun, preventing it from coming out of dormancy in the winter. The tree is 4 feet tall, and the exposed branches above the fence are mostly budding out right now.
I decided to try Goldcot this year, which apparently is similarly hardy to Tomcot, and will try the fence trick again this year. I do not have any illusions about growing a big, beautiful apricot tree, but would be satisfied with a short, stocky apricot tree that gives me a few pieces of fruit a year.
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Thanks for your input.
I put in Tilton, Harcot, and Goldcot as experiments
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I put in 6 last spring in WI 5b. The Tior tsan made it just fine, no die back at all. Tomcot and Puget gold appear dead. Sugar pearls, Zard, Harcot had pretty severe die back but have some green pushing lower. Looks like they might make it, might not. Think I’ll put in more peaches or plums as well if they don’t make end up pushing through. Those all made it just fine without any issues and actually had some flowers on a couple 2nd year plums and pluots which was surprising.
My zone is not as cold as yours but sometimes, colder zones have less yo-yo temperature which is an advantage. What I like about Tomcot is that its flowers do not open all at once. Ones that opened later have escaped late freeze for me. This was when all other varieties got wiped out on a freezing night.
It also tastes fine. Tree-ripened apricots taste a world better than any store-bought apricots.
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