I saw Florilege have flower buds. So, there is hope 
.
I maintain that of all the fruit I have tried. Home grown apricots are night and day from store bought. The store bought one made me dislike apricots for so long.
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I’m sure you have probably said, but why did you remove your multi-graft apricot?
If others have mentioned this, I’ve missed it, but I’d be very curious to know if most of your trees are behind, ahead, or about normal for this time of year? Last year all mine were VERY early- like 2 weeks+. THis year, everything is about 2 weeks later than usual. Its very curious to me. I understand about chill hours and all, but we had plenty of cold weather this year, so I really have no idea at all why things are blooming so late. THe good news is I may get apricots and Spring Satin Plum cots and my other pluot. THose 3 get killed by frost most years. (did I just jinx myself?) OH…I’m in zone 7a on the TN/KY border for those who don’t know.
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Yesterday 3/15/2021 my first peach blossoms opened… just 3-4 and a few more today.
Only on my New Rising Star Peach… my Reliance is coming soon, and Early Elberta will be a few days behind them.
Also first time propagation of raspberries… I planted 6 plants/crowns last year, and now have all these extras (and simply cut off several)… Heritage Red is a mass producer. The two up front left are black raspberry, and front right Fall gold.
TNHunter
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We’re looking good to this point. Let’s hope there’s nothing below about 25-28 degrees going forward! Last year two cold events in April and one in May killed everything here in my part of Kentucky. I did see a commercial apple orchard that had a few trees with maybe two dozen apples per tree…but not many.
Kevin,
My multi grafted tree was an Easternglo nectarine. The fruit were more tart than I like. I grafted 6-7 varieties of apricots and another 6-7 peaches/nectarines on it. It was a mess.
The tree was only 4 ft tall but quite wide. Two years ago, the trunk start to split deep and wide. It got worse last year. It was a matter of time before it would die.
I needed a space to put my young Tomcot in ground. I could not and would not want to wait to collect scionwood this winter. I removed it last fall and the Tomcot is there now.
I also do not want to graft apricots on peach trees. They grew wild. My Tomcot is too young to graft. If I saved those varieties, I still have no trees to graft them on.
In short, I am impulsive
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Just hand tilled a couple 4x6 garden beds by hand and planted carrots broccoli, and radishes. Next is another bed and to plant beans, corn, squash, and watermelon!
I’m probably a ~hundred miles or so east of you. Pink was showing fairly well on peaches March 9 last year and just now starting to peak through. So a week to two weeks later seems like as well. Mainly hoping for no late freezes this time round!
Getting ready for @39thparallel 's grafted apples to arrive tomorrow. Going to baby the things in some 15 gallon pots until they size up. They get a special spot in the rabbit protected area of my garden.
Putting in the following:
- Hawkeye
- Swiss Limbertwig
- Royal Limbertwig
- Black Limbertwig
- Kidd’s Orange Red
- Bill’s Redflesh
- Red Cinnamon
- Clark’s Crab (@clarkinks - I hope it does okay in my area of the country. Seemed great for you.)
- Wolf River
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Very interesting! I was just curious because I’m always so reluctant to take a tree out, even if I have learned that I don’t like the fruit. If its doomed to die like yours, then I have no problem pulling the plug like you did. But this year I’m really having to convince myself that if I don’t enjoy the taste of the fruit, its silly to keep it.
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Oh yea…I lost a lot of fruit last year to those winter events you mentioned. That one in May was just crazy and took almost all my plums. Of course we are close enough that we are going to get hit at almost the same time. Fingers crossed we’ll dodge those bullets this year.
Upper 20’s a night or two upcoming…then we appear to be past hard freezes and just to worry with frost.
You have a lot of space so keeping trees even the ones you are not fond of is not an issue.
I don’t have that luxury 
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Not fruit, but tree-related. Today I dug up a trident maple I had planted to let it size up to hopefully use as bonsai. The mail leader had died, so I’m hoping to hollow that out eventually like an old tree with a hole in it. The pruning is merciless (this was about 8 feet tall with multiple big branches going up), but I’m hoping it heals well and I get a flush of new shoots to be able to choose from for the branches. I’ll also let the branch I left to become the new leader grow out a while to thicken it up and hopefully develop a better taper into the main trunk. Like any bonsai, I’m in it for the long haul. Mostly I’ve made bonsai from small stock, but this one and another I planted out 5 or so years ago to hopefully get the big trunk and a nice root flare.
For now, it is planted in the bottom I cut off from a 10-gallon nursery pot while I train it for the next few years. I have another one to get to, but that has to wait until the weekend.
I welcome any input, including telling me what I did wrong, from anyone with bonsai experience here. For instance, should I cut that one smaller crossing root on the “front” side?
After digging and chopping the roots and top.
Then planted into the temporary home for the next year or so.
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2 days ago 3/15 my Rising Star Peach had first bloom open…
Today 3/17, my Reliance opened first bloom.
My Early Elberta has none open yet, but it is usually just a few days behind the Reliance.
Lots of blooms on lots of stuff getting ready to pop out here…
Last year on April 15… just before sun rise it was 33 degrees (per my back porch digital thermometer)… and just after the sun came up, it dropped to 32.
It was damp and the wind picked up some early that morning and a cool frosty mist came up out of the hollows and blew across my ridgetop where my home and orchard is.
By 9 am, I could tell my concord grapes were seriously damaged, they later browned, fell off, and sent out branches again about a month later, but did not fruit.
My Peaches (which I had already thinned at that point)… looked OK at first and Apples too for a day or two, then started showing signs of damage, shriveled up, browned and fell off.
Again lowest temp I saw on my thermometer was 32 (on my back porch) which is about 80 yards from where my peach and apple trees are…
I am sure a lot of you experienced something similar last spring.
Sure hoping we don’t repeat anything like that this year.
TNHunter
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Good! I hope it continues to grow. You need to stake/support those especially if they take off growing so they don’t break from wind or animal. And keep checking for rootstock suckers. They will appear quickly. It’s always exciting when the bud swells. 
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I plan to. Really want to wait and see what takes. Hopefully most! I’d assume bud swell means cambian layers are hooking up? Or could it be just from juice in the scion…?
Could be either…
you won’t know for certain until an inch or more growth has happened.
Still, much of the time, swelling buds means it ‘worked’ and your graft took. Just not always.
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