My Rouge de Roussillon are at shuck split in March. The other apricot a much later Polonais has still not bloomed.
Polonais
Polonais
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How many varieties of apricots you grow, Mrs. G?
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I am down to one variety as of this morning. I only grow and have just re-ordered two Rouge de Roussillion. My Polonaise died. I had a terrible attack last summer of an insect that lives inside of the tree (not a borer). It forces all of the sap out of the tree, killing it from the inside. I just chopped down my polonais this morning I also had a Bergeron (killed by the same insect). They are nasty bugs. The R de R, is really my favorite, so the rest are history. They were ok. Smaller and milder. The Rouge de Roussillion is probably the best apricot I have ever eaten fresh or cooked with. They also make an excellent jam; the apricots are large, very red and very sweet the perfect tang.
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I didn’t hit the reply to you button, but my answer is below your question.
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You have bugs, I have Mother Mature!! Often, we have had a late freeze. This year it has been mild all winter. Now it is spring. Smooth sailing? Not sure. This week low temp is in the 20’s with Thurs night will drop to 22 F. My Tomcot is showing pink. We’ll see.
I grafted Orange Red to it and plan to add Illona next month.
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We have Orange Red here as well. I would say it is the closest to Rouge de Roussillion. I have never tasted an apricot like this before. Fresh or cooked. Come and try them this year! Our nurseries and supply stores for fruit trees have varieties I have never heard of. Many of them are ancient varieties, but they have withstood the test of time and French tastebuds, which are very particular! Ha! Here I do not have to zone push as I used to in RI. The rot and mildew and black knot killed me. They do not exist here. For that I am most grateful. However, the one insect that I get it is destroyer; not of fruit, not of leaves, or bark, it goes for the entire tree! Oh well. I hope your Tomcot isn’t showing too much pink.
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Here my Montrose and Peacatum was the blossom but my Chinese and unknown Apricots want to stay dormant still.
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I grew 5 varieties of Apricots in Z6. In 14 years I only had a few trees produce fruit 3 or 4 times. One tree produced a decent crop twice in that time. I started with 6 foot+ tall trees to plant. I wish I had gone with white peaches over the apricots, unless I had no limits on the land. I only have room for 35 trees or so. And that is packed! If I had more land, I would have kept the apricots and would not care. But land is limited and have to care. Loafers get cut down. And the wind removed one of them for me for free.
If you can grow apricots, grow them. The ones in the stores are garbage, tasteless rubber. I loved apricots growing up in L.A. They were the first fruit to hit the markets when fruit was just grown local and not shipped in from around the world. I am grateful I can grow peaches. White peaches are the best!
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For your zone, I agree stick with peaches. I grow two varieties of white peaches. They are both excellent.
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I have one little ‘crummy tree that came in a bag’, from Tractor Supply. It snapped off, above the graft, the first year it was in the ground. So I let the rootstock grow and then grafted several other varieties to that, last year. I think I will give all the varieties a couple of years - as an experiment . . . and then rework the tree to only keep the ‘good’ ones.
It’s doing pretty well, I guess. Not sure I’ll ever get any fruit to mature properly here in muggy VA. Here it is - a couple of weeks ago - with these varieties starting to flower.
Robada / Hoyt Montrose / Tomcot / Harcot
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My latest new Rouge de Roussillion is budding. My other R de R has apricots getting bigger by the day. The reddish dust on my table is residue from a storm. It is sand from the Sahara. Always a mess!
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We have two ~17 year old Apricots (they were already here when I got here), but they’re apparently not suitable, bc, more often than not, late frosts kill everything.
Would it be preferable (or even a possible solution) to cut the tree from the trunk and graft late blooming apricot there, or get many late blooming scions and graft onto the branches?
I don’t like the idea of losing all those years of work the tree had put in to growing all those roots.
Very few apricots bloom appreciably later, and of those I only found one that also has hardy buds so you get fruit. That variety is Hoyt Montrose. Hoyt Montrose is from Montrose, Colorado which gets many cold snaps in the spring… it’s designed for such climates. If you can’t find that variety I would not bother top-working it, but if you can find it then by all means top-work your apricot. You can graft to the trunk, to the limbs, any way will work. Bob Purvis sells scion wood of Hoyt Montrose.
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Yeah, actually, I’d just been eyeing that particular variety for this purpose. 
Is Bob Purvis a user here?
I think Bob may have an account here but just type his name into google and you will get his nursery. Note I think he may be done shipping scion wood for the year. I have the variety but it’s already budded out. You can get it from Bob next year if nothing else.
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Is Purvis Nursery and Orchard his nursery?
Yup
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He looks the part (time-tested, knowledgeable). 
Hi guys.
I’m going to tell you a “not very funny” story.
In Spain, extremely delicious traditional varieties of apricots have always been grown, especially the varieties from the province of Valencia, Murcia and the Balearic Islands.
As the problem of the Sharka virus (PPV virus) appeared in Central and Eastern Europe years ago, European fruit breeders embarked on programs to obtain apricot varieties resistant to the Sharka virus.
All commercial plantations converted traditional varieties to new varieties, which are large-caliber fruits with tremendously beautiful visual appearance.
Take a look:
https://www.cot-international.eu/en/product-presentation
https://psbproduccionvegetal.com/en/apricots/
Etc…
I was so stupid that I let myself be seduced by these new varieties.
When they began to bear fruit (in the fourth year), the fruits were indeed visually beautiful.
What is the problem ?
They have no sweetness, no aromas, no flavor, that is, they are like eating raw sour potatoes (all terribly bad).
As farmers stopped planting traditional varieties, over the years these varieties came to the brink of extinction.
Several amateur friends like me from different regions of Spain (Valencia, Murcia and Mallorca), helped by the IMIDA (Murcian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research and Development), and Muzalé nurseries also involved in the project to recover Spanish varieties of traditional apricots .
We have managed to rescue more than 60 varieties so far and the project increases year after year.
In a few days I will show you grafts from this year, of these varieties, which may not be as visually beautiful as the modern varieties, but when you eat one of these apricots they are authentic ambrosia.
Surely you know some of the most famous ones like Moniquí, or Mitger de Castellón, but there are infinitely better varieties, which we will discuss later.
Best regards
Jose
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