I think our friend @Naeem normally starts this post… last year it was started March 22.
With everything budding, flowering and fruiting early this year… thought I would go ahead and start it now.
My little AU Rosa J Plum and Shiro have already bloomed and the AU Rosa set fruit… but a frost took them out already. So sad… but my EU Plums… noticed a few buds and one bloom getting ready to open on them today. I have Rosy Gage and Mt Royal. I don’t remember for sure which is which now - I have them in a double planting… once I get Fruit I will know. One is Rosy the other Bluish Purple.
I started them in 2018 and this spring… finally a blossom. I hope many more and some fruit this year.
Would be nice to get EU plums, since my new J Plums got frosted already.
A fellow forum member mentioned that he doesn’t see people here talk much about air layer propagation of fig trees. I think it might be good for us to spread awareness of this method. I was able to get 9 excellent cuttings, waist to shoulder high, just from the one side of the tree that was getting too near to the lawn and needed a trim anyways.
There’s a race among the greenhouse avocados to see which will flower first this year. We’re more than a month behind when most of them opened flowers last year, I guess setting the heater 5°F colder this year made a bigger difference than I expected!
Something I’m excited about - Baby Crawford peach buds are popping. This is one of the verified high chill peaches that doesn’t fruit well here. We have the highest chill hours this year (of that last 5 years) and the graft grew well so I’m expecting a decent harvest. Intense peach flavor - I’d rate it as my fav stone fruit I’ve tasted so far (others like Black Tartarian and Moorpark are close).
I’m learning to appreciate the white peaches and nectarines and the diversity they add to my harvest. Many have said Snow Beauty is their best white peach and it is rated at 800 chill hours. It did bloom decent last year but too young to set fruits. I should taste them this year. I think this will fruit reliably here and doesn’t always need a high chill year
Other peaches/nectarines that are blooming or in popcorn stage that I’m watching - Fei Tao (fruited last year), Honey Lite, Honey Diva, Tesoro, Samarkand Gold, Silk Road and June Pride. As usual, Kaweah acts like a high chill peach with no buds popping but it reliably blooms very late
Talking about the uncommon, my black thorn bushes are going to flower after seven years of waiting. I live in centeral Ohio. I will post pictures of them when they are in full bloom.
Four of my peach trees have started to flower. I managed to catch a happy bee in this picture! Unfortunately, we are supposed to have weather in the low 20s on Sunday and Monday…
Below is a fun mystery tree! Bonus: it’s really pretty. It’s one of the peaches that is blooming. Last year, I only saw it with foliage (dark purple) and not with blossoms. I assumed it was ornamental. However, it is actually in a row with some other fruit trees that were just hidden behind out of control weeds.
I can’t find anything about purely ornamental peach trees or even large sized peach trees with purple leaves. I’m betting someone here knows!
Are you sure it’s a peach? Looks a lot like the purple leaf cherry plums (Prunus cerasifera) around here, ‘Thundercloud’ is the main cultivar here but there are others.
Nope! I’m not sure at all!! I spent all last year calling it “the plum tree”. However, the leaf shape is really long like a peach, the flowers look more like peach since they have no stem like plum, no notch like cherry, and they’re blooming at the same time as trees which actually produced peaches last year - so I decided I’d try calling it a peach tree instead!
Here is a super close-up less-artistic view of a flower and some buds from today. Though something about the angle + my hand makes the flower look comically large it’s only about 1.25’’ across:
The tree’s leaves stay dark purple. They get a slight bit lighter and maybe have a greenish hue, but definitely stay purple. I’ve seen pictures of the “bonfire” peach and it doesn’t look like that. I really did think it was one of those ornamental plum trees until I thought about it and actually looked at the leaf shape and flower.
