I wouldn’t buy from Lowes. CVN and Vaughan’s will still sell you
one or two trees for a small upcharge. Well worth it. Just order
early in the season.
1 Like
Like I said, I’m not buying them from Lowes. just thought it was worth mentioning that this hard to find cultivar is available there.
That’s not what they told me.
If/when I pull the trigger, petals from the past looks like a good bet.
They’ve done it for me many times.
Vaughan nursery has changed that as of last year I believe, it’s now bulk orders only
1 Like
when was the last time they did it for you?
Their trees are only 9 to 11 dollars each for a quantity of 10 depending on size. Surely you can find several friends in the area who would love to get a peach tree or 2 that cheap. Have you seen the prices at Stark Bros? $44.95 for a Contender peach on sale now.
I’m a massive shut in and have very few friends, none of whom are as into fruit trees as I am.
I’m currently trying to sell fig plants for about $20 each local pick up only. I started with 27 plants and posted to a local fig group, work friends, and Facebook friends 2 months back. I’ve only sold 4 to strangers from the fig group and none to friends or colleagues. The only local nursery by me that sells fig plants sells them for $60. I don’t have a lot of luck selling plants.
$29 from petals from the past should work fine.
I don’t buy trees from Stark Bros. Likely overpriced due to all the advertising and search engine optimization they pay for.
Norman is another NCSU peach. I grew 50 trees of those for direct sales. Larger, earlier and firmer than Winblo. Great Bacterial Spot resistance. The trees are more vigorous than Winblo. I did way more summer pruning on them to get sunlight in so they would color up nicely. Cummins sells them.
Flavor wise Norman is better than Contender but not as peachy as Winblo. I’m not into high brix fruit so what I like may not be to your taste as Norman isn’t as sweet as Winblo in general.
2 Likes
Hey there Big Mike, closely consider the root stock on any variety you choose. Lovell seems to do best for me due to its wet soil tolerance. I’m going to be trying Krymsk 86 next year because its said to preform even better in wet soil than lovell (to be determined).
1 Like
I agree on rootstocks. Avoid Bailey as it doesn’t like wet soil. Lovell works fine for me on a wide variety of soils.
Big Mike,
Peach trees grow so fast.
This means you can try a type and if your not happy, rip it out. We planted our 3 ft tall Red Havens, chopped out the center for open vase. Scaffolds started at 15 inches off the ground. And got two peaches that planting year.
Because they grow so fast, you want a really small tree with low scaffolds. Lowes, Tractor supply and such have huge trees but scaffolds starting at 4 ft! So if you buy online, get the smallest they offer. Then you can shape it
1 Like
4 Likes
I found an email address for them (maybe incorrect) and asked for a 2024-2025 catalog.
I don’t graft myself (there is a good reason, don’t ask) so I’ll likely be stuck with whatever rootstock CVN or Petals from the past uses. it looks like CVN sells trees on Guardian and Halford depending on the cultivar. I’m not sure what petals from the past uses.
I’m definitely looking at a lot of peaches. some of the cultivars that people recommend are harder to find for sale than others. I’ll certainly consider Norman.
I was looking at a lot of early, yellow, freestone cultivars. looking up disease resistance as best I can.
I was looking at Souvenirs and Sweet Joe recently.
I purchase my trees from Willis Orchards. I believe they’re still growing full size trees on Halfords. The prices are great as well.
The Contender is always a great choice.
I also like the June Gold very much. It is extremely frost resistant, ripens late June, has showy flowers, extremely aggressive grower. It is semi cling, but that doesn’t bother me. The peaches attain above average size so processing is easy. They are a little more prone to brown rot than the Contender, but three shots of Captan and Carbaryl resulted in near store quality fruit.
Willis sells a Sam Houston. It too is reportedly showy, but I have no experience with this one.
I have a mislabeled peach that I believe is an O’henry. It blooms later in mid March here in NC when the frosts are bad. Most of the fruit this year were deformed due to frost. I don’t have these issues with the Contender or June Gold. The June Gold blooms extremely early during the late Feb false Spring, and sets and grows peaches through temps as low as 23 degrees.
2 Likes
What varieties are you looking at? I have contender, red haven, loring and belle of georgia grafted on lovell currently. If I have it grafted I would be more than happy to send you a small tree after dormancy on lovell rootstock. It would be in a coffee can pot, ready to plant.
1 Like
That is very kind of you but I’m still not ready to pull the trigger on a peach. I really appreciate it though!
1 Like
I would experiment with something early as well. If you aren’t spraying, the sooner the fruit ripens the less exposed to brown rot and coddling moth. However, brown rot pressure also starts to subside very late in the season. so you could also try that end of the spectrum, although insect pressure from coddling moth and Oriental Fruit moth might nix that. The only peach crop I ever had destroyed by OFM was to the very late (in NY S.) Indian Blood. Here it mostly attacks growing tips and not fruit if you have a spring insecticide program.
If you are going no-spray, older varieties may prove more useful. In this country, most breeding programs don’t usually consider brown rot as they tend to in Canada.
2 Likes
In case anyone takes this as advice. Do your homework.
https://growingfruit.org/t/willis-orchards-response-to-me-getting-the-wrong-tree/5259
1 Like
you are the second person on this thread to mis-read the first sentence of my post.
If I grow a peach, I will spray it.
I’m willing to spray for good peaches, Although I’m hoping an early cultivar would need less spraying over the course of the season.