I decided to pass on cherries and instead have some fun planting 4 different avocados this week.
1 Like
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!
1 Like
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.
2 Likes
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. 
1 Like
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.
3 Likes
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.
2 Likes