I know I’m probably replacing my O’Henry due to very poor performance 3 straight years. The tree has had nothing but issues with sap oozing out of every cut, very poor growth in one of the prime locations, and almost no flowers. I also might be looking to replace my White Lady. Out of all my trees it and O’Henry are at the bottom in terms of flowers. I have a few peaches to possibly replace them. Some won’t even come close, and others might top them. White or yellow it doesn’t matter. All opinions welcome.
PF-1
Early Redhaven
BlushingStar
Starking Delicious
Suncrest
Reliance
PF 1 gets a NO vote from me. It is an early and a good sized peach but it produces fruit that has inconsistant quality for me, not cold hardy and after three consecutive years of subzero temp, the tree now is dead.
Its demise could be for other reasons, too, including how I treated it but let’s blame it on the temperature for now
Blushingstar is a great tasting peach - one of my all time favorite whites from the farmer’s markets - and supposed to be late blooming/ frost hardy… we’ll see… I planted it last year. I think mine suffered modest frost damage this spring, but still might set a few fruit.
Redhaven and its variants are the standard rugged peach. I love Redhaven for its well-balanced taste and melting texture, and do not think it is overrated.
To my suprise, my O’Henry looks to have laughed off last week’s freeze, and had bees buzzing in its flowers today. Go figure.
White Lady is my most vigorous peach. It set one fruit last year in its first leaf post-transplant.
Sean chances are high it is not the variety but the rootstock/soil/borers or some disease such as canker. In any case O’Henry is not the easiest peach to get good fruit from so don’t feel too bad about removing it.
At first, I was disappointed that the quality of the fruit varied from one year to another. Then, I decided to change it to a frankentree. I had about 5-6 varieties on it and all grew well.
We had subzero temp in 2014, 2015 and this past winter last year. Now, not only flower buds were toasted, those grafts were shriveled and turned brown from the top down.
So, this is the end. I would love it as a Frankentree
I have Redhaven and Blushingstar side by side in an area separate from other peaches. The Blushingstar sets far more fruit than the Redhaven. It could be because they are unintentionally close. Blushingstar might be dominating the Redhaven. I removed 3/4 of the fruitlets on the BS the other day, but only removed a few where there were several close together on the RH. I’m sorry, but I don’t recall if there was that much discrepancy between them last year, but I don’t believe there was. The disparity could have been caused by the unusual fall and winter seasons we had.
I can’t compare tastes because there’s nothing about either that stands out in my memory. I’m not really a white peach eater. I probably let others enjoy the BS, instead of eating those myself.
I have Blushingstar. Produces beautiful perfect peaches but i think they are…eh… Mine have produced well from a container for many years. I had Reliance years ago and tore it out because i didn’t care for it. Very hardy though.
Sean, I assume you found my variety opinions list?
I guess you are not looking to replace the season of O’Henry? It is a later peach. If you want another later one, I would consider Rio Oso Gem (not quite as late but still pretty late). If you want one that is earlier, Ernies Choice is great. Also I like Clayton and Winblo if you can find them.
I agree, after all these years that the rootstock has a lot to do with it. My O’henry in Z5 died too, but in retrospect I think it would have had a better chance on Lovell instead of Citation.
I agree completely with Matt’s evaluation of Redhaven. My sense is that it is a pretty marginal producer in Z5 although it seems to try hard to produce something. I like ‘Polly’ in Z 5, although I doubt it’s the best adapted peach for this area. No issues with taste, that’s for sure.
