I have to admit, the only winter we had temps -20 and a little lower there was virtually no peach crop- peach trees were killed north of me where it reached temps below -25. Maybe somehow the further north you are the more coldhardy buds tend to be.
In those pictures they look much more like peach than cot. Westcot seems to have unusually pink blooms for a cot. Al my varieties have white blossoms.
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My Zard cot grafted on a nectarine looked similar to that. At first, I thought Bob Purvis sent me wrong scion. Then, as they opened more, they turned pale, paler than any nectarine flowers around them
Can people who have Zard tell me what the color of real Zard flowerlook like?
@scottfsmith, what the color of your Zard flowers?
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My Zard was definitely white blooms but I can’t remember if they started a little pink on the spurs and then turned white, or if they were white from the get go.
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Mark,
That is a concern!! Before the blooms open, they were medium pink, almost the same color as peach/nectarine. I showed it to my hubby and told him I could not believe I grafted a peach there.
But after the blooms opened, they are light pink, like @maineorchard’s Westcot above. They were never white like Robada, Tomcot or Orangered ( I have those three on this same three, too). The more the blooms were open, the paler they became. I hope they set fruit so I could be sure I got an apricot, even if they were not Zard !!!
My Katy Apricot buds have pink sepals then open to white petals.
Tippy, have you had a chance to examine the leaves? They are distinctly different than peach. And my Zard flowers mostly from Spurs, like Maine’s photo above.
I’m at the orchard now. Would you like me to take a photo of one of the Zard?
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Sure, Mark. I wish I could have taken pics last week.
I have other aprocots so I know what leaves look like. This one graft is just at petal fall so not enough leaves to see.
I grafted another half of that “Zard” scion on Autumn Star peach tree. I just saw it has a few flower buds on it. I will take a pic tomorrow. Today, is wet all day.
Here’s the biggest of a couple I got from Purvis, I think in 2014. They don’t grow very fast. A half paper towel is at the bottom for reference.
It looks like all the blooms got froze of. It blooms about like the earliest peaches, which I guess was too early this year. Photo probably doesn’t do you much good. Sorry.
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You have a whole tree ( or two)!!!
Of all my 5 apricot grafts, Tomcot, Orangered, Robada, Moniqui and Zard. Zard blooms the latest. I don’t have very early peach anymore. The earliest ripening peach that I have now is Gold Dust.
None of my peaches bloom as early as apricots. Zard overlapped a bit with Earliglo nectarine.
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I think my earliest blooming is the aprium, but this year everything is within days…
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Here’s how it’s played out for my stone (prunus) fruits this year:
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My Alfred apricot growing against the south and eastern sides of my house seems to be setting a massive crop although there were only a few flowers left when I saw first bees arrive- it was very cool and wet throughout most of the bloom period- it flowers a few days ahead of cot trees in the open. I realize that apricots consistently crop without cross pollination in the west- here, not so consistently, but I cannot understand a heavy crop occurring with no apparent pollination at all.
A Tomcot on the house’s south side also seems to have set a crop from earlier flowers. Not nearly as heavy as Alfred, but that may be a good thing.
If fruit ends up dropping, which I doubt, I will post the fact.
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The Fraser Valley was hit with cold rain for a week solid when my Frost Peach was Blooming. I think I have one or two fruit that set but otherwise the dozen blooms that were on the plant have fallen off.
The Puget Gold Apricot caught the tail end of the cold rain and had 30% of the blooms set which left me with 8 fruit this year out of around 30 blossoms. I was able to hand pollinate but I don’t think I was as effective as I hoped.
The 5 graft Cherry tree and Italian Prune Plum caught good sunny weather when the blooms opened and have set 75% and +80% respectively though I expect a few fruits to drop. The trees are just starting to develop the fruits and the weather is good so I’m hoping they decide to keep most of what they have set.
My moniqui apricot got fried. South facing stonefruit trees are almost a no go at my house. Luckily i have a graft of it saved on another tree as backup. My best performing stonefruit trees are the ones that stay mostly shaded all winter.
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Mark,
My smaller graft of Zard on Autumn Star had a few flower buds on its tiny branch. The buds look more pink than other apricots I have.
I took pic this evening. Hope you can see the buds in the middle of bloooming peach flowers.
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I see them there in the middle. I can’t remember what mine looked like when they first emerged, but if they started out a bit pink, it didn’t take them long to turn white.
Those blooms are really nice!
My other “Zard” blooms did not turn white, white like all other apricots I have. They turned pale pink instead. I saw there are 3-4 fruitlets on that Zard branch. I hope they develop into fruit. I really want to find out what they are.
Thanks. That’s Autumn Star.
Any “showy” peach blooms are pretty. What amazing to me is the fact that peach varieties with non- showy blooms can produce fruit that are as large or even larger than showy ones.
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