Checking in to see how everyone’s trees are doing. With the warm weather everything’s starting to wake up, but I’m thinking a lot a lot of flower buds died off, especially the peaches. Guessing it was the -20 we had back in late December.
That’s a bummer… 
Hi Scooter,
I have been pre-occupied and haven’t been watching closely, but did notice the 2nd leaf montmorency waking up. I do think some of my container trees got their buds fried.
Maybe the -20 will at least kill off some of the pine bark beetle?
Our trees are waking up. They are about 15 days later than last two years. Fingers crossed all goes well. I’m actually more concerned about any upcoming cold snaps that can zap the fruit.
Indeed, my stuff is all 2 weeks late; makes sense with the long, cold winter.
As more and more is waking up, I’m starting to fear that I’ll be losng more than just some fruit buds. At least one apricot is toast, a second is probable, and my pluot is concerning as well. Kind of a bummer that I’m waiting on if the trees wake up or not as I can buy a replacement now, but not for much longer.
That’s a bummer. Odd too since I thought apricots were relatively cold hardy.
I accidentally girdled one of the larger branches of my apricot. I had a rope tied to the branch several years ago to align the branch the way I wanted it, but forgot to cut the rope later on. The first snow this year tore the branch off. That was unfortunate. The tree is not showing signs of waking up just yet so we will see.
Also, don’t forget that you can never have too many trees 
It’s a DWN Pixie-Cot that I got tired of bringing into the garage every winter, not unexpected that it didn’t pull through. My other apricot is a Montrose with a few grafts of Zard. That was is a surprise to think it might be dead, though I still think it might just be really delayed in waking up. We’ll see…
So far all peach trees have started pushing growth and I have yet to see a single flower. Bummer, I’m really going to miss that harvest.
Just wanted to chime in. My peaches are struggling, not dead but struggling and no blooms. This is the same with my sweet cherries plums and apricots.It’s really a bummer because this spring was pretty good
Pear doing ok with lots of blooms and fruit set now. My really cold hardy berries and such have no issues.
@Codude I have a really great peach it was mislabeled from Burchell. You can have cuttings if it survives. Mid April bloom and mid August ripening.
A month later, it looks like 100% losses for all outdoor peach, nectarine, and apricot blooms. Lots of tip die back as well. On the bright side, sour cherries, apples, and pears all came through with flying colors. Other successes as well: my Honey Jar survived, as did the roots to a lot of the Ark series blackberries. Both of these I bought thinking they were marginal for my climate.
One exception to the peaches might be my Contender peach tree. It is literally just starting to wake up. I know it’s a known cold-hardy, late blooming tree, but my Jujube and grapes broke bud before it! There’s a chance maybe some of the blooms survived, but I won’t hold my breath. If it does have some viable blooms, I’ll sing it praises to all.
Oh well, as many who have lost their crops this year put it, it’s a good opportunity to prune and shape…
That’s a bummer to hear hikeike! My peaches are also in bad-shape with lots of die-back. They are in their 3rd leaf, and were going to need some major re-shaping due to getting away from me last year, but now have to figure how to handle that with them unhealthy.
One plum with some notable die-back as well… other trees (mostly 2nd and 3rd leaf plums, pears, cherries) might have some tip die-back at most. Only flowering a bit on my old pear and the apple… of course none of the grafts are flowering
100% loss on peaches this year as well. The trees survived though which is good. Lots of dieback on the apricot trees. Apples and grapes survived without any issues and are thriving. Also not fruit, but our roses pretty much all died to their stumps.
It is a bummer but at least the trees survived like yours but also lots of tip die back too. This rain has also helped them bounce back also.
I have one 3rd year peach contender I I shaped heavily this spring due to it getting away from and it is doing ok. I pruned it before I knew the trees were going to have issues.
@danCO yes my roses almost dead to the ground also but making a nice come back.
I’m glad your cherries came through well! One branch on my Black Gold died and even my Montmorency only put out a miniscule amount of blooms.
This rain, and spring in general, has been awesome. Very mild temps with consistent precipitation, I’ll take this every year!
That’s interesting that your Monty seemed to be set back by winter, from what I thought it was a very hardy tree. That said, I have an unimpressive North Star cherry that always put out a little something, but didn’t this year, so I guess most sour cherries were impacted as well.
I’ve been impressed with Juliet and Carmine Jewel and feel like they do really well in our region. I’m growing them as a bit of a privacy hedge and so far they’re working great; producing well at an early age, filling in well, and not growing to tall.
We are renting at the moment, but there are two sour cherry trees in our couldesac. In Loveland. Larimer County.
Has anyone else noticed fruit flies?
I thought they were invasive species from Europe. Supposedly they are native. Much different than grocery store fruit flies though. Spotted wings.
Can’t say I’ve seen them, but I don’t look very hard as the pest pressure is pretty low for me.
I usually get Japanese Beetles around the start of July and SWD get into the raspberries late into the season, but that’s about it.
I see a fly which looks like that on my trees this time of year. They don’t seem to have much of an effect on the sour cherries or plums, but I think they lay eggs which hatch and tunnel in the apples, though I have not positively tied them to that.
Anyone here growing apple trees in containers? If so, what rootstocks work well for that, given our conditions here? I’ve been reading that higher vigor is generally desired for container rootstocks. MM.111? B118?
Well it’s probably late enough in the year that everything which is going to start growing has, so I thought I’d share my observations and see how other have done. In short, this last winter was a tough one on the trees and plants. Several of my apples did not survive (mostly 1yr plantings), and while most of the others came back only about 20% or so set fruit and only 3 really set a good crop. Quite a few trees only set a few fruit (like 6-12). Stone fruit was the hardest hit, one plum died and another is barely pushing any leaves, and even the sour cherries are very slow to leaf out and have few blooms.
Don’t mean to just be whining here, but I am curious if other are seeing similar things at their place. And if so, anyone know what it that stressed the plants so much. It wasn’t that cold overall, maybe the lack of thawing breaks in the weather.
Sorry for your losses…
At least, here, we saw around -15 at one point, and that is colder than we’re currently ‘zoned for’ at 6a.
My two 3rd-leaf peaches had some notable die-back, but with the wet weather have made an awesome recovery. Only have some apples, pears, figs, and a couple peaches on a miniature potted peach (planted this year)… most other are young trees, anyhow, but no thing here died, and I probably had 5 2nd-leafs in the ground. Definitely a bunch of non-fruit shrubs also died back significantly.
I’m curious - the ones that died - what varieties and rootstocks were they?
