Are there any interspecific hybrids with some apricot flavour that I can grow in zone 5b ? What are the hardiest varieties ?
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I grow Flavor Delight, and it fruits most years. It’s mostly apricot.
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I grow Tlor-Tsiran Apricot and while it took four years to fruit this year it was amazing. Apricots are like a once per seven years thing here so before i had eaten these i was planning on putting some A. Plums and pluots on it (like once per four years). It seems like @Drew51 has excellent results and loves the taste of Dapple Dandy, I want to try one of the Dapple Dandy cross with more blood in the fruit (Because i have a thing about red flesh) but wonder if i should just get Dapple Dandy and just be happy that there maybe a pluot that would fruit here every once in a while. Really the plum and taste i want is Elephant heart A. Plum but it just wakes up so early here (i think tlor tsiran would wake up after as it wakes up days before Superior). The hardy apricots like Montrose, Hoyt, Zard and Chinese / Mongolian seem to be some of the latest to wake up.
@ltilton How is the flavour of flavor delight? when does it wake up compared to your other trees?
Maybe @itheweatherman has an idea of some of the newer hardy interspecific crosses? I wonder if there are any of the new red dapple varieties that show some promise for z5?
Including the 2 varieties I have now, I have tried a half dozen varieties of apricots and they all get through the winter alright here…they just seem more susceptible to splitting bark and canker than plums. I don’t want to give up on trying to grow an apricot-like fruit but apricot trees are so troublesome…shame because they are beautiful.
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Flavor Delight is about a week earlier than my Harglows. The flavor is almost pure apricot - maybe a bit more tang. The fruits are somewhat larger and definitely more juicy. I LOVE it.
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Summer Delight Aprium and Sweet Treat Pluerry are by far the most hardy tolerant hybrids.
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Here in Southern California, Summer Delight aprium blooms around March 21st and it rippens late August.
The flavor is between Geo pride pluot, Flavor Grenade, and with apricot after-taste.
The blossoms and young fruits are somewhat tolerant to frosts.
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That sounds awesome and late for SoCal, Can you compare it to bloom date wise to monty cherry or a asian or euro plum or peach?
@ltilton Im really looking for apricot and more juice and that sounds excellent, When does it bloom compared to other trees?
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Summer Delight blooms eight to ten days before Rainier cherry.
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Of all my fruit trees, it’s first to bloom, right along with Asian plums.
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Ahh superior plum is basically the earliest bloomer i have and my understanding is its late upon A Plums, they both sound great but maybe i should try to get a sweet treat and multi graft her with summer delight, dapple dandy, flavour delight and maybe elephant heart
I am in 5b, and planted both Montrose and Mormon from this link. Had trouble with borers and also keeping track of who is who, but one has made it through and is bearing delicious fruits. It went through -15 that damaged some peaches. It looks like they have another variety that is considered hardy…
https://www.burntridgenursery.com/Apricot-Trees/products/18/
Are you referring to “Scout” ?..that one is available here also…there is a nursesry a few hours drive from here that has Scout, and Debbie"s Gold and Precious which sound like they are very hardy…the thing is…I haven’t had any trouble getting any of my apricots through the winter…I have had Goldcot, Hargrand, Harojoy, Haroblush …(all of which I chopped down )…and now have a Westcot and a Veecot…the problem is that they all split, if not at the crotches then right on the trunk…and start oozing…now I know that this does not necessarily mean disease…but my feeling is that with apricots it probably/usually is…so I chop them down, because I have a lot of plums and some cherries and I don’t want disease spreading around…maybe I could leave them and they become tolerant of this condition (diseased or not)…and they might be ok…but I have chosen, so far, to get rid of them if they do that. I’m not really surprised that any stonefruit go that way if they have suffered trauma to the trunk while being dug from the nursery, or in handling/transit…or afterward…but apricots seem very prone to erupting from out of nowhere…very frustrating trying to keep a tree intact and healthy. I suspect it is much easier to do in their natural habitat, rather than here in the always humid and sometimes wet northeast.(and when it’s not wet it’s dry as a bone)…stress for the tree any way you look at it. I have mulched with wood chips to avoid moisture fluctuations…I think the only other thing I can do is plant them in raised beds too to protect from overly wet springs which are a regular thing now with climate change…here to stay…and the occasional unusually wet period in the summer or fall…which in this area have always been more subject to drought than wet and now even more subject to drought.