I decided to pass on cherries and instead have some fun planting 4 different avocados this week.
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I’ve thought about that too, like a self fertile Little Cado avocado , but I know for sure that means protecting it multiple times each winter.
If I ever were to build a greenhouse, I would do it just to grow a few dwarf tropicals. Avocado, mango, star fruit, etc. That’s a bigger project than I think I’m up to at the moment!
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So received and planted my two low chill cherries…Royal Lee and Minnie Royal.
We’ll see how they grow.
One thing I will say, often like these two trees the dormant buds seems to be dried out or rubbed off. It’s hard to know where to prune to get an outward facing bud because I can’t tell/see any viable buds. Hopefully some are hiding, otherwise the initial branching will need to be removed and I will have to start over from where the nursery did their cuts.
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So as I was looking at the two just planted trees for buds… I thought… Let me see if any of what I just cut off has viable buds.
So I did 3 chip/bud grafts with the best candidates. I know chip and bud grafting is usually done in late summer or early fall, but I figured why not try.
I won’t loose anything by trying.
PS chip grafting seems to be easier to do than dormant grafting like tongue and groove and cleft. It’s easier to wrap with just parafilm since the branch is intact above the graft and you can hold it against the tension of the parafilm.
Less work and less dangerous to my fingers! Still not totally healed from my last finger graft, uh, scion graft. 
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North Florida here: This year we got 500 579 chill hours depending on which chill hour model you use. This is the most we’ve gotten here by far since I planted the fruit trees.
Lapins Update: I might have a cherry or two forming this year. My Lapins exited last fall not looking good. Lots of gumosis. Lost a major branch. It completely died. Not sure what has happened to it. But I’m going to try giving it a lot more fertilizer this year. I think I needed to do a better job taking care of it. This was the most healthy cherry I had so not a good development.
My Royal Crimson like the Lapins didn’t grow much last year at all. I’ve had some more blooms but I don’t think any cherries are forming.
About two years ago I planted some additional cherries. A new Royal Crimson that needed a heading cut to fix the poor structure. So nothing yet just growing up a bit. Might have had one bloom.
About two Years ago I planted a Minnie Royal and a Royal Lee. I put them real close together. And planted them in an area that starts getting shade around noon to 1:00 PM. The Minnie flat out just died. The trunk split up and that was it. So I bought another one. It is kind of weak also and needs to get some growth this year. The Royal Lee is doing well so far. Had some blooms this year. And I think I’m getting a few cherries on it somehow. We’ll see. Its small and I did try hand pollinating between my cherry trees.
Going a bit off topic my Flavor Delight Aprium which I swear has the perfect open tree structure finally bloomed a bit. And I’ve got Apriums on the treee. This variety supposedly will taste like a very good apricot. I think age and the colder winter helped. I’d like to see even more blooms next year. Not sure what exactly pollinated it. I think it can be self pollinated. Either that or the pluots right close by did it. By the way the most exciting things is that this tree seems to do very well in terms of being fungal resistent. It rarely shows any signs of leaf problems in humid florida of all places. I just spray it with Captanor a few others that I rotate with.
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I also have two Pluots. This is I think my third year with them. And my second spring. Both springs I find them both covered with flowers. I mean just completely smothered. Sadly I got heavy rain a bunch while they were open. It looks like I have pluots on the Flavor grenade. I’ll know in another week if any of the Flavor Kind pluots got pollinated. I’m betting the did. My Santa Rosa plum once again did nothing. I think I might try moving the tree. I don’t think it is getting enough sunlight.
My Celeste Fig tree died. I think it had a really poor graft point from day one. But I won’t be trying to grow figs again in my yard. I just don’t think the soil has any acidity at all and Figs really need that.
So that’s it for the spring update 2025. It looks like the Aprium and Pluot Trees are going to work fine as well as one of my Asian Pears. The rest including the cherries so far have been a bust. The lady that sold me the cherries says she has had some positive feedback. Last time I spoke with her which was a year ago she recommended feeding the cherries every month with more fertilizer so I’ll give it a try and see what happens over the next two or three years.
But like others have said. If five years from now there is still nothing than I’d say it was a bust. People in Southern Georgia might have a bit more viability than North Florida. Just 60 or 70 miles further North I think could do a LOT better. as far as commercial production I can already say no way no how, just not going to be viable here.
I will try to update later early summer just to let everyone know how the fruits themselves turned out.
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North Florida here: This year we got 570 chill hours (below 45) and 404 chill hours between 32 F and 45 F. Not as good as last year. But two good years in a row for chill. The bad part this year is that we got most of the chill hours in February with late freezes. This hurt my apple trees and my low chill peaches which were in full bloom in February. So the best part of my mini orchard (The apples) will probably be a bust this year. I plan on fertilizing more this year in general. Might as well put on growth if I’m not going to get fruit.
Lapins Update Well my Lapins Cherry is dead. I had to cut it down last year. Pretty sure it was bacterial canker and it was throughout the tree. It was sad because it had been healthy I think until late 2024 but it was clear it was over.
Royal Crimson: The original one much like the last few years grew very little. It will have a few blooms this year like the previous years with little chance of bearing any fruit. As a last try I’m going to try to fertilize heavy this year and see if it responds. It doesn’t help that my soils are perfectly neutral. Lacking a lower PH I think hurts as well. This tree had canker cut out of it early on and have a rough transplant. But I need to snap it out of it’s size restrictions. I pruned already. Hoping it will grow some this year. I need pollinator’s bad now.
Royal Crimson #2: This one had such bad structure that at about 3 years old I lopped of and headed it. The tree now has decent structure though last year it didn’t grow much. Like the others I”m going to baby it a bit more this year and fertilize it well. I’ve got two blooms and hopefully more to come.
Minnie Royal #2: Number one died. Planted #2 in same spot about three feet away from the Royal Lee. Boy is this one sad also. I might try getting another one and planting it stand alone. This one was in trouble from the beginning. The lady I bought it from gave me the most pathetic one on her lot I think. I don’t know why but I had a Charlie Brown moment and took it anyways though I should have waited or insisted on a different one. It is alive though. I expected it to be dead to be honest. Again I’ll try extra fertilizer to get it going. I also think it suffers from major blind wood. I pruned it. I may need to get more aggressive. If it doesn’t perk up I might try heading the thing like I did Royal Crimson #2. Or I might dig it up next fall and just move it.
Royal Lee #1: WOW WOW WOW, it started blooming two days ago. It is not a large tree yet but I’ve got at least 60 blooms on it. And a bumble bee was all over it today. I had two cherries on this one last year but they aborted. I suspect they got poorly pollinated. But this year for the very first time I have a cherry tree that is blooming and looking like a stone fruit tree should look like when it blooms. Sadly there are only two other Royal Crimson blooms near by. Hoping that bubble bee is a miracle worker and picked up some pollen from the Royal Crimson. This tree has been looking good and seems to be right on track. If only I had pollen. If my Royal Crimson’s would bloom I think I’d be in business. The Royal Lee looks like a winner.
My Flavor Grenade Pluot, Flavor King Pluot, Flavor Delight Aprium are starting to bloom as well. And this year all three are in sync just a few blossoms on each with many more starting to come forward. Two of my Asian Pears are also just starting to bloom. That whole side of my yard is in bloom now. So I’m loving the timing of the later bloomers this year. Last year though I had pears and pluots and the apricot none of them made it. The pears hung for a long time than just dropped but they were still hard. I think the deer were knocking them down. Bugs got my pluots and apricots.
Tactics: This year I’m going to use pesticides on my pluots, Aprium Delight, and Pear Trees. I would have had a decent crop last year but the bugs, deer, etc… got all of them for the most part. I’ve also got one netting should it get to that point.
I’m also going to fertilize my Cherry Trees heavier and baby them more like I did my first year. Growth has been a problem the last three years in terms of them just not putting on as much size as they should.