Planted two peach seedlings together. Seems like a mid season variety. Just started to see some color on fruits on one of the trees. Super vigorous trees.
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If you want to maximize their eating quality, you should thin them to about 8” per fruit.
I had a seedling peach that produced very large fruit. Unfortunately, they tasted very bland. After 3 years of bland fruit, aI grafted it over to named varieties with much better quality fruit. Some seedlings do produce good tasting fruit but more often than not, it’s just OK quality.
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I agree but the tree is out of control even with heavy pruning last year and thinning is not an easy option. I tasted one fruit last year. It was excellent tasting but most of the fruit got affected by fungus. This year, I sprayed a fungicide so it has held up better.
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Lucky you that it tastes good.
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all my seedling peaches grow great fruit.
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Yes! People should plant more seeds! I’m surprised how many good fruits I get off of seedling peaches, pawpaws, Asian persimmons, apples, Asian pears, and plums.
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I too have a peach seedling well at one time I had six. Five have died. The one I gave to my daughter. It’s a fine peach whose mother was Indian Free. I like growing out from seed too. But also love the great cultivars out there.
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Growing from seed is underrated. I have a few apple seedlings going that came from a particularly good Cox cross and the variation between them is fascinating, completely different growth habits from the same fruit. The wait for first fruit is the hard part but there is something satisfying about a tree that nobody else has. Yours look incredibly healthy for seedlings, that vigour bodes well.
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While it’s true that peaches require heavy pruning, you should shift your paradigm.
You don’t prune to control the size of the fruit tree, you prune to balance out fruiting and new growth. You are actually reducing fruits and promoting new growth with pruning. While it’s not really advisable, the best way to keep the tree relatively small is to never prune it and let it fruit heavily year after year, that will slow down it‘s growth considerably
That is probably true Rubus. I was told that when pruned in dormancy the tree become more vigorous and if pruned in mid summer the tree’s vigor can be controlled. The bigger of my two trees is already 18-20 ft so pruning to control height is ok. It’s all an experiment. No rules and no big expectations. Everything is a bonus 
I’m not saying your wrong but everything I have read said you need to prune your beach trees can you please tell me more I would like to keep my tree around eight feet
Also how long does it take to get fruit from a seedling
Mine fruited in three years. I control height by pruning. Works well, doing it for thirteen years now. I only have one peach tree ( two nectarines ) right now. Thirteen years old five feet tall citation rootstock does dwarf them a bit.
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that is true you should definitely prune peach trees, but the reason to prune a peach trees (and this is true for most fruit trees, but especially all that fruit on one year old branches like peach), is not really to control their size but to balance out growth and fruiting.
A tree that does not get pruned, will fruit heavily and grow less. Hence my a bit tongue in cheek advice, if you want a small fruit tree, never prune it. The drawback of this would be, that the lower growth will lead to less fruiting and earler onset of senescence. Again this is especially true of heavy fruiters, which is a sign of all fruit trees that flower on one year old branches. In some cases you can literally kill these trees within less than 10 years if you don‘t prune them.
You can control the size a bit and within limits through pruning, I would say roughly 75% of it‘s natural height might be feasible.
If you prune too heavily, the tree will best case react with a lot of new growth (and less fruit) or worst case lose it‘s vitality.
Any cut above 2“ in diameter will permanently damage your tree and reduce it‘s lifespan.
Some might suggest summer pruning as a remedy, since in that case you take away leaf mass which reduces growth, as opposite to winter pruning where you mainly take away buds while most of the nutrients are stored in the trunk and thicker branches, which in turn gets distributed to fewer buds and makes those fewer buds produces stronger branches.
But caution is advised with summer pruning. If you live in a zone with proper winters (8-9 and below), the reactive growth that gets induced from your pruning might not reach a ripened stage and be susceptible to winter cold a lot more. On the contrary if you live in areas where cold winters are not a problem, the strong summer sun can damage the now exposed trunk and strong branches of your tree if you prune too heavily during summer.
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I am going to plant a peach tree for my sisiter and she wants it mainly for flowers. She would like some fruit but that is secondary for her. Which method of pruning would be best for this. A cental leader, modified central leader or an open center. She lives in zone 6b
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I think it is easier to keep open center trees looking attractive. It is also an easier pruning method than the other methods (in my opinion).
If you want a really pretty peach tree, look at “flat wonderful”. It just left patent so it should be getting less expensive. It is my prettiest peach tree.
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You’ll want to choose a variety with attractive blossoms - not all peach varieties have equally showy blooms. It’s also important to evaluate the planting site, taking into account nearby structures, other trees, available space before deciding on a training system.
I second @benthegirl suggestion on Flat Wonderful. Check some of my pictures posted at https://growingfruit.org/t/flat-wonderful/53038/18
For peaches, I’d recommend an open-center training system. If aesthetics are a priority, you can establish the open center higher up on the trunk - similar to what I did with my Flat Wonderful. It creates a nice-looking tree while also providing easy access underneath for mowing or simply walking beneath the canopy.
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I have Sunhigh peaches in my yard, and I air layered it but once it starts to bloom if it doesn’t suit her I will just graft it over to something else. I heard that Indian peaches have really red blossoms so I might try to graft one of the scaffolds over to it. If I go with an open center and graft each one to a different shade of blossom that might please her but I have only successfully grafted apple, pears, and plums. I have never tried peaches and from what I have heard they are harder.
Yeah, peaches are harder to graft because of the scions waking up earlier and drying out and higher temperatures required for callus.
Here’s a pic of my Flat Wonderful peach taken today, July 10th, showing leaves changing color from red to green.
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That looks really colorful even without blooms. Are they hard to grow without too many sprays.
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They are great. The leaves are dark purple and slowly turn green as summer goes on.
They’re not any more difficult to deal with than any other peach. The donut shaped fruit are a bit more prone to splitting, I think. The foliage on my flat wonderful is very healthy though, and it seems like a pretty robust tree.
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