Budding out way too early?

The weather here has cooled down for now and seems to have slowed or stopped everything from progressing. I will for sure check my Anjou pear tomorrow evening and see for sure though.

I was planning to clip a few scions first week of February…but I may do it this week, as especially the red fleshed apples may have bud swell …. nothing less than 22 to 25 degrees in the 14 day forecast.

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I missed pruning most everything last year because once it warmed up in February (the main reason I pruned in early January this year), everything broke bud and bloomed out and I had a rather good year with everything even with all of that happening so early! Hoping that I have similar luck this year and once everything starts budding then the cold weather will be for the most part, over.

Checked on the wild pear in my front field and it is starting to bud out some

The Anjou by the house is to far gone I think now. Hopefully it doesn’t get froat bite or winter killed but who knows

My Kieffer on the other hand (just 15 feet away) is still very dormant

Guess I will just have to wait and see what happens now.

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My Black Ice plum looks like it will bud out any day now, and Shiro is not far behind it… Two P. americana down the street are a day or two ahead of Black Ice, and may start to bud out in a day or two. I have not checked on the Methley or Redheart trees in my neighborhood. Most of the ornamentals are ahead of where I like.


This rose is in a protected corner, and never went fully dormant.

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Crazy that the roses are already bloomed :fearful: or at least starting to!

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I actually have an apple in a pot … a April 2019 graft … that never lost the green at the tip end where it was actively growing when it turned cold at Halloween. Lost the big leaves, but little leaves 1/2 inch or so remain and look like they could start growing again…rather weird. And 61 in forecast for GROUNDHOG day? It will be sunny here that day, most likely. I also have a butterfly bush that had all leaves froze off in early November…but has grey-green leaves all over it currently…some nearing an inch.

This seems to remind me of 1987 or 2007 (?)…both years were nearly a total loss on fruit crops in Kentucky…but time will tell. Those years things leafed out in March and got frozen in April when temps went into upper teens.

I know in 1987 the Feds handed out 200,000 dollars for apple losses in my county…and one recipient got the whole amount of money. (That’s how government always works, the little guy gets nothing.) Anyhow, sorry to carry on…just that memories were recalled by the season.

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I tried throwing king size sheets over my trees that were most likely to bloom several years ago. After struggling mightily, I used a stick to help move the sheet over. Truth be known wind and my pitiful process probably lost more fruit than I ever saved. They are too big for that now. It was comical and would have been a good home video to show the grandkids!

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Time to bark grafts it.

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So afraid it will kill the grafts… won’t the cold hurt them? Or will they be ok? If so then I know what I will be doing Saturday morning :grinning: @tonyOmahaz5

Just checked the weather and I may not be doing that Saturday :scream:

I just hope the weatherman is wrong like usual :man_facepalming: :joy:

There’s Monday when it will reach 60 though…right?

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If I can get home early enough from work and there is some daylight, then yes :+1:

i see you are in same zone and i pnw. i also grow methley and black ice plum. could you please tell me how does black ice plum compare to methley? im still waiting for my young tree to fruit. i know that black ice should be larger size fruit than methley.

I am still waiting on Black Ice to fruit. The Methley down the street makes tasty plums that are like Shiro in size. I am worried that most of the flowers will bloom too early this year to get decent fruit. If it does not set fruit this year, the vigor will be fun to deal with. I am a little surprised that such a hardy plum requires so few chill hours.

Does it look like one of my P. angustifolia that are too well sheltered? I plucked the tiny leaves and left the tips intact. It looked like it might try to leaf out, so I plucked.

Here is Black Ice


Shiro

P. americana from down the street

Sister P americana

Free P. americana scion?

Redheart from the next street over

Methley from down the street

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last year my methley didnt have nay fruit young tree i had to stsrt over from my old house. black ice is even smaller than melthey ill have to wait and see. thank you for sharing let us know the update.

My trees up here in NE Ky seem to still be asleep, but yeah, it’s supposed to be near 60 next week, so hope that doesn’t stick around too long.

I sure hope we don’t get a late freeze this year, we didn’t last year, and my peaches didn’t even bloom, so hoping for another chance this year.

I remember the days of yore when I didn’t care anything about such weather, coz I didn’t grow anything then. Now with gardens and fruit trees, it’s a different story. I’m just a hobby grower, and I fret about the weather a lot. So I don’t know how farmers deal with the more stress of trying to grow things for a living.

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Well, I hear you. I was raised on a farm. Then went off to college and did a lot of things. Including a stint at factory work. Had as many as 85 hives of honeybees in late 1980’s…that was my main ‘farming’ in the later years. But for 20 I’ve been planting things for customers, etc.
And some for myself when I can catch a little spare time.

And to “nil” …. yes lots look like your apple pix…but one has leaves nearly an inch that didn’t die or fall. And I have a burgundy leafed apple (probably a crab seedling) that has leaves like it was late April. :slightly_frowning_face:

Snipped autumn olive scions…there are green leaves coming, but maybe a few spots on the limbs that aren’t.

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85 hives of bee sounds like quite a bit of work :fearful: Very cool though. I love to watch bees work and I would say that in mid summer they were flying everywhere with that many :+1:

I think it’s safe to say my Arctic Star jumped the gun this year. There is zero chance those blooms will survive :cry: My SpiceZee, Flavor King, and Dapple Dandy are all still pretty dormant though. Several blueberry varieties are probably 6 weeks early, luckily they are in pots so I can move them to the garage and may still get a decent crop if pollinators will show up early enough

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