I’m in zone 7A in cape cod Massachusetts, spring comes pretty late here. I’m putting a tomcot apricot in this spring and there are two places where I can put it.
I can put it up against the south part of my house, where it will be sheltered from the cold north and nw winds. The house should help it stay a bit warmer through the winter too.
Or I could put on the north side of my house, but farther away from the house. It would be a spot that is exposed to wind, but would be in the winter shade. It would still get plenty of summer sun though.
Apricots bloom early, often too early where I am in Worcester County, zone 6a.
If it were I , I would plant it where it can stay dormant as long as poosible. The north side would be my choice. How strong is Cape Cod wind. Around me, the top wind gust speed is about 50 mph which is not often and my neighborhood is rather wind sheltered.
This is not so easy to answer. We get late frost every few years and from what I observed:
Neighbors who have apricot tree right against the house (they can harvest them off the balcony) have apricots even when others including me don’t. The proximity to the house really makes a difference. The disadvantage is that it blooms about a week earlier but when only 1 or 2 degrees decide if the blossom gets fried, this location is perfect. But if you have big swings in temperatures the sheltered location won’t help much anyway.
Also there are years that we get no apricots (I am talking about thousands, maybe tens of thousands of trees) but there are some in higher elevations.
So down in the valley, about 630ft elevation, everything is burnt but if you walk up the hill next to the city, about 880ft and up, you can find plenty of cots there.
I also noticed on some years my dwarfs in the orchard will be virtually without fruit due to late ground frosts but neighbor’s huge seedling 20ft away is loaded.
Both of your scenarios have it’s pros and cons.
Anyway if I was you I would still probably go with the spot that is closer to the house.
I heard this from an experienced nursery man. Plant apricots on the north side of the house, close to the house. The house will provide lower temperature zone during winter for the apricots so that they don’t wake up early. This is critical especially in areas with wild cold snaps. I did a test around my house. The south side is 15~20 degrees higher than the north side during the daytime. Believe it or not. Then during the summer time, because the sun is high in the sky the apricots will get full sun.
Following his advice, I put my tomcot 8ft from the north side of the house. Northeast corner actually. I am hoping this will work well. I just planted it this year, so I haven’t seen the results. But hope this info helps.
I could be wrong, but I think the Cape might be one of the safest places on the East Coast to try to grow apricots.
Spring is so delayed there. I recall driving from NW of Boston down to the Cape on about June 3 one year.
Everything when we left was of course fully green and lush, but by the time we got down near the Cape, there were a lot of trees, especially oaks, that were only barely starting to leaf out at that point. I mean they were just “budding out” and the leaves were still very small.
It had not been a particularly cool Spring, either.
