What peaches, dwarf or otherwise, can we grow in Z9a?

We just got hold of some awesome O Henry peaches, and they are delicious. Unfortunately, I don’t think we have enough chill hours for them down here in southeast coastal GA Z 9a…but I could be wrong. Can anyone suggest a decent peach that will grow here? Thanks, Ed

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Eva’s Pride – very flavorful
Mid-Pride – slightly sweeter

How many chill hours do you have?

There is a bunch of peach varieties developed for low-chill So. Calif. (a couple of those are mentioned by @Richard above), but it’s a very different climate than yours, and various problems in terms of lack of productivity and diseases may arise.

You may be best served by varieties bred for Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, for example, check offerings by a nursery in North Florida: https://www.justfruitsandexotics.com/JFE/product-category/fruit-trees/peach-trees.

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About 500 chill hours. Thanks for the link.

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500 ch is not bad, you have many options.

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I’m in NE Florida, so I’d be willing to bet our climates aren’t all that different, you may have slightly more chill hours. Anyway, I had contacted JF&E a while back and they recommended the following to me, UF Glo, Flordaprince and Flordaglo. In the interest of full disclosure, I haven’t tried any of these yet as I’m trying to grow mine from seedling.

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@Stan, Yeah you’re right, I thought it was less, but must have been looking at a crumby map or something. I did a bit more research, and using the average from several maps, 500 hrs seems about right.

@jeremymillrood, When you say seedling, are you growing one from seed? We just got a batch of amazing O Henry peaches, and will probably try starting one from seed, just as an experiment…and we do realize it won’t grow true to variety, and probably not enough chill hours here anyway for that one. My wife is very picky and doesn’t want to grow a peach tree unless she tastes the fruit first. I wonder if there is a place we can sample some of the varieties like UF Glo, Flordaprince and Flordaglo, so we know exactly what we’ll be growing.

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@edweather, yes, we got some good peaches/nectarines from from the local market and I started about 10 from seed. 3 made it and out them only one is doing really well. You can see in my thread here: Starting Peach/Nectarines from pits - #35 by jeremymillrood .At this point I can’t recall if it was even a good peach or not, and even if it was that doesn’t necessarily mean this tree will produce good fruit, but I wanted to see if I could do it…

As far as those other peaches go, they were specifically recommended to me by JF&E as being ones that are the best tasting.

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I checked out your thread. Wow, your peach tree is really amazing. I just cracked 3 peach pits today, and put the kernels in some potting mix in the fridge. We shall see…

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It is pretty amazing, especially considering that it cost me next to nothing, other than the original peaches…Didn’t bother cracking mine, but I’ve heard it done both ways. Now it’s just a waiting game for you…

I think I lucked out with this tree. Not sure I’d be able to duplicate growing another one like this, but I may give it a try. The cool thing about peaches/nectarines is how fast they grow. You don’t have to wait long for results…

good luck.

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