Hi all,
I went to Lowes to get some lawn fertilizer and saw that they are carrying Diamond Princess Peach and Golden Sweet Apricot. Has anyone try to grow or has the chance to taste these two fruits to see if they are any good?
This isnât much help to you Tony, I do have a Diamond Princess that I got a Lowes 3 years ago and this was going to be the year Iâd get to taste the fruit. But as you may have seen, the late freeze killed the buds. What was interesting about the Diamond Princess-and you may have already discovered this- is that there was almost nothing about it anywhere online. About all I found was a couple university sites that had photos and a short description. One thing I didnât much like was how Lowes marketing folk dressed the tree in some special tags called it a âSuper sweetâ variety and claiming it was twice as sweet as any other peach. I never saw anything anywhere to suggest this was anything more than a trick to justify them pricing it $8 higher than their other peaches. I hope Iâm wrong, but I felt it was just a gimmick. Nevertheless, it was a different peach and I bought it at the end of season mark down so I gave it a shot. THe one good thing I can tell you is mine has grown really well and has been a very happy tree the 2 years its been planted. Good luck.
This is what I found so far on Golden Sweet Apricot: âSmall, golden, exceptionally sweet apricot fruits follow the pink blushed, white, spring blossoms. Ornamentally attractive, glossy, green foliage. Light orange, freestone Apricot variety with a high sugar content for a sweeter tasteâ. "Golden Sweet is a self-fruitful tree that is an orange-yellow freestone variety. It bears deliciously sweet (maybe the sweetest apricot in existence!) and exceptionally firm fruit that can be eaten fresh as well as being suited for drying. Golden Sweet Apricot will grow up to 15 feet in height with an equal spread. It has an upright form, medium growth rate and enjoys full sun exposure Delicious, very sweet, small, firm, golden orange fruits. Fruit ripens in early summer.Self fertile, no pollinator needed for fruit set. To set fruit, tree requires 700+ chill hours of a winter temperature at 45 degree or below. Hardiness Zone 5,6,7,8,9 -Sun Tolerance 
Full Sun .
Diamond Pricess:Developed by N.G. and L.G. Bradford and patented (PP#7066) on 12/05/1989. Marketed by The Burchell Nursery, Inc. The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of peach tree, which has been denominated varietally as âDiamond Princessâ. The present variety was hybridized in 1984 by us in a cultivated area of our experimental orchard at Bradford Farms near Le Grand, Calif. in Merced County (San Joaquin Valley). It was the result of a seedling using Red Diamond (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 3,165) nectarine as the selected seed parent and an unnamed peach seedling as the selected pollen parent. Subsequent to origination of the present variety of peach tree, we asexually reproduced it by budding and grafting, and such reproduction of plant and fruit characteristics were true to the original plant in all respects. The fruit produced by the present variety most nearly resembles the fruit of Redtop (not patented) by being a freestone peach that ripens in late June, but is distinguished therefrom an an improvement thereon by having a more globose shape, by having almost full red skin color at ripening time and by being extremely firm in texture, making it more desirable to the long distant shipper. The present variety exhibits desirable characteristics common to its selected seed parent, Red Diamond (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 3,165) nectarine, by producing heavy crops of fruit that are nearly full red in color at harvest time, freestone in type, and very firm in texture, and also that ripens in late June. It noticeably differs from the Red Diamond by being a peach instead of a nectarine and by having a large blossom instead of a small blossom.
I may try these two out since they are readily available at Lowes and some of these trees are loaded with flower buds.
Tony
I have fruited Golden Sweet in pots and ground but not a lot of fruit so my opinion is flexible still. So far itâs my best late apricot and that includes a lot of rejects. Itâs rather small but can be very sweet. Iâll have about two dozen fruit this yr. But still need another couple yrs to be sure.
I think it was Carla in Sacramento who bragged about how sweet the market place fruit was.
Thanks Steve, later on today I will swing by Lowes and pick one up with lot of flowers. If you said it is sweet then I want one. We both have sweet tooth for fruits.
Tony
Tony:
I think apricots are at least somewhat like sweet cherries, location dependent. But Golden Sweet is definitely worth trying. I bought one just like that, in bloom. Held in the pot to sample the fruit, into the ground, and then moved again as I replanted the greenhouse. So all those factors limit my confidence in what the fruit will be like on a well established tree.
Iâd like to try Golden Sweet, but thatâs pushing ch for me. Although I will say, I have had very good success with fruit set this year on my Flavor Delight aprium which is labeled at 600 ch (doubtful, probably more like 400). Whereas Bella Gold peacotum and Arctic Jay at 500 ch each havenât even begun to bloom (think ch for these are actually going to be much higher). Same for my Emerald Beaut plum - no blossoms yet, but this is only its first true season in the ground, planted last year in February or March (late, late for us, for bare root season). Flavor Grenade, which my husband pruned (very badly, still not happy about that, have taken the Felcos away from him) has set a few fruits, but would have set well this year I think, if it hadnât been for the terrible pruning job, pruning away all the potential buds, and thatâs 5-600 ch per the label, but thinking more like 4-500. So, itâs always a bit of a crap shoot here, pushing the ch envelope.
Patty not sure where you read flavor delight is 600 chill hours.
DWN nursery lists FD as: âVery low chilling requirement, less than 300 hours.â
Retail on DWN lists Flavor Grenade at 200-300 hours, although commercial says it is 500-600. Iâm guessing FG is 200-300, since arctic jay is listed at 500 or less on retail but commercial has it at 900-1000
Anyway, hope this helps
Patty, also thank you for all your posts on the citrus forums, just put in 3 kishus, to go along with my 2 gold nuggets (one 4 years old), tango and page. 
And, fruitnut talks about this all the time. Ch, especially I think from DWN can be exaggerated either way, for various reasons: Overestimated with commercial growers, so they cannot come back and say, âI just bought 1,000 trees that I donât have enough ch to growâ, and home growers sometimes underestimated, to perhaps clear inventories of excess trees. Who knows for sure, but you pointing out something like âArctic Jayâ being all over the map with regard to ch proves the point that you can only really know by planting and seeing if it will set fruit. For me, based on my yard, and what I am seeing, I would say Flavor Delight is more like 300 ch. Flavor Grenade and Arctic Jay definitely on the higher side, but I surely hope not 900-1000, or Iâll never see fruit on it here.
And, youâre very welcome, good luck with your wonderful mandarins and mandarin hybrids. All my favorites. Enjoying the last of my Kishus and my Gold Nugget is SO covered in fruit, Iâm bringing 3 big bags of fruit to my future in-laws today, for a little belated St. Patrickâs Day party, I actually will not be able to eat them all. 
(And, I do want everyone to take note that I actually have fingernails. A rarity for this gardener. Trying like heck to keep my nails nice until August 15th for my daughterâs wedding, although I DO see a speck of dirt under one - guess you canât get all the gardener out from under those nails.)
Tom lists Flavor Delight as less than 300 hours and Flavor Grenade in the 200 to 300 hour range. They are both in his list of Top 21 fruit in low chill areas
Regarding Tomâs list:
I grew Flavor Delight in both CA and TX. Donât find it special at all. In fact it has little flavor IME. Also not a big fan of Cot-N-Candy. But for low chill they might be the best cot types available. Splash and Emerald Drop arenât high on my pluot list either.
Tony, in which Lowes did you see Golden sweet apricot? I have not seen any in the Lowes on Dodge St.
AM
They still have some on 144th and Maple St.
Tony
Thank you, Tony.
Hi Tony Omahaz5 and Friends,
I have a Golden Sweet Apricot. I bought it at Lowes 4 years ago and this year, I have seen more blooms than ever. I have it potted in this large container just so that I can move it in and out of the garage (when the temps drop to freezing if necessary) on my home made container carrier that my carpenter brother constructed for me. I am uploading a picture. The blooms were pretty pink a week ago. We had very warm weather last week and even this past Saturday as I watched the bees busily pollinate all my trees here on my patio-even the flavor supreme! When the apricots are ripe and ready, I will update you on the taste. I am glad that Fruitnut has stated that the apricots are sweetâso I am anticipating this treat as well! After the fruit has been harvested, I will prune this tree a little better-please forgive the look!
Golden sweet apricot is actually an aprium. Well, thatâs according to Kingsburg orchards, they market them as apriums.
TWM,
I got a tree from Lowes this year and bark grafted several branches. Maybe next year, I can taste the fruits.
Tony
It looks like DWN will be bringing Golden Sweet into market next year. Is it worth planting one for PNW 8B?
I donât know. Here its good. Well worth growing but not top five.
Whatâs the source of this information? I did not find it on their website upon a quick Look.