Ugh - sorry for your losses Scooter. I awoke to 28, and thought… I might be OK. Then it dropped to 26. Hopeful I’ll keep some plums and perhaps some pears. If I get real lucky, maybe a couple peaches and apples. I guess we’ll see how tonight pans out.
1 Like
Anyone ever thought about using pool noodles to protect some parts of their trees during these times? That’s what i did one year for currently blooming peaches. It worked on the areas i protected them with. My trees are very small though
1 Like
The noodles didn’t rip off the flowers?
1 Like
Use the ones with big holes and cut a slit for it. Cut it into sections as well so that they’re not super long and you can easily pull it apart to separate the noodles length wise. You want the noodles with hollow centers
1 Like
Stayed around 32 here on Friday night, but woke up this morning to 26. Yesterday I put some “maggot bags” around early apple blooms and peach fruit buds (the first in 3 years here). It sounds like we are a little behind you guys in terms of blooming- only trees here in full bloom are crabs and our old pear trees (tentative ID is “Seckel”).
Hoping I’ve saved a few blooms- not seeing any more freezing lows here in 10 day forecast. 
(is this the most used emoji for Front Range gardeners?). I’ve got buds on several of my 2-3 year old apple grafts and I really want to taste ‘em this fall.
At least the Nuggets came from behind to win OT last night!
2 Likes
Glad to hear you’re behind us in terms of bloom. I think most of CO has been early this year. I’ve kept an eye towards the west slope as well. Though this article is from earlier in the month, temps seem to have been pretty low there the past few weeks as well. Be interesting to see if Palisade peaches end up in short supply this year.
2 Likes
So far, I can tell that the developing blossoms on my Paws Paws were wiped out. Was going to be my best blooms and both trees going at once, which does not always happen. Grapevines look OK. Waiting to see on my young plums and Northstar cherry, although the cherry (yr 2) had only a handful of blossoms anyway. Several of last year’s pear and apple grafts bloomed, but I was not going to let them fruit anyway.
1 Like
I don’t know if I’ve heard of others growing paw paws here on Colorado. Have you fruited them previously? I haven’t attempted due to their debated toxicity, but curious to hear how yours have done or will do.
I have not had fruit. I thought that this would be the year since both trees had 25+ blossoms forming. I have them planted in exactly the wrong spot - kind of in a wind tunnel. Cool trees, though.
Update since the mid-April freeze:
The freeze killed nearly all of the primary grape buds that had developed enough at that time. Later buds abd secondary buds have filled in well. Less fruit on the secondaries, but that just means less thinning needed.
The freeze did in 99% of the blossoms on the plum trees. Toka and Superior, both planted bareroot spring 2024 had 1 abd 4 plums develop. Mt royal, planted bareroot 2023 is large but still has not bloomed.
The freeze killed off all of the 100+ blossoms on my 2 Paw Paw trees. But the trees came back with about 30-40 new blossoms and I appear to have some fruits started.
I’m going to list everything out - maybe someone will find what ended up being hardy and what didn’t instructive. For reference, cold snap occurred after an generally early bloom on almost every stone fruit. Temps down to 22 for extended hours.
Total fruit losses: Elberta, Red Haven, and Veteran peach; Arctic Glo nectarine, Toka, Superior, and Black Ice plums; Flavor King, Flavor Queen, and Flavor Supreme pluots; Chinese Mormon, Montrose, and Zard apricot, Honey Jar jujube, Nanking bush cherries. I also have a very fussy Honeycrisp apple tree that likes to go blank some years with a number of different young grafts on it. No apples on the parent tree or grafted scions.
Very minimal fruits (1-20): Indian Free and Contender peach, Waneta plum.
Appear unfazed by the late cold snap: Juliet and Carmine Jewel bush cherry, all honeyberries, all European plums.
I was thinking of starting a thread called High Elevation Optimists and poked around to see if we’re already represented; you front-range people seem to experience the closest thing to my erratic conditions, where the Great Basin meets the Sierra at 5600’ elevation and a Denver-esque latitude. Late freezes are typical, right into early June (once in July), but I love fruit and I love growing food, so I have to try.
This year, after a hard late April freeze around the same time as yours, my little Evans/Bali cherry is the only producer among the stone fruits. It bloomed late, held onto its fruit, and bloomed again after the frost. A new little bare-root Montmorency planted on May 5 managed to put out exactly one blossom on May 16, and now holds exactly one cherry! I’m starting to think sour cherries are my best bet and have just planted Romeo and Juliet bush cherries. Thanks, Scooter, for your encouraging “appear unfazed” report on Juliet and Carmen Jewel. I also planted a new one called “FE” (patent pending) from Honeyberry USA which purports to resemble Evans.
Most of my stone fruit trees are too young to judge. I’ve planted the three peaches with names like Mars rovers: Intrepid, Contender, Reliance; a Chinese apricot and a Harcot, and hope to try Montrose; and Benton, Lapins, and Napoleon Royal Ann sweet cherries. I love cherries. And peaches. And homegrown apricots. I have to try…
My Honeycrisp apple produced its first apple last year, and this year I count 13 despite the frost. Red Fuji, zero. Arkansas Black bloomed later; waiting to see if it sets fruit.
Comice pear: nothing. Bartlett: I spotted two. It produced 24 pounds last year.
I can picture you, Scooter, walking around counting fruits! My consolation is that the trees look great, and will have a good year of putting on growth - if it doesn’t freeze hard now that they’re all leafed out, and kill them outright!