Online Directory. Call Us. Where do peaches not do well? What varieties are hardy in Colorado? Search the Site. About PlantTalk Resource for Colorado residents to find research based gardening information for the diverse Colorado climate. You do not need two peach trees to produce fruit, since most peach varieties are self-pollinating. On a self-pollinating tree, each flower contains both male and female parts. Under the right conditions, the male part of the flower will release pollen onto the female part of the flower.
However, self-pollination does not mean guaranteed pollination. You can provide this stimulus with an electric toothbrush if there are not many bees in your area.
For more information, check out this article on peaches from Wikipedia. The quality of care that you give your peach trees will determine how much fruit you get each year. Some of the most important factors are:. However, there are some varieties that can survive winters up to Zone 4.
Peaches can certainly survive frost. However, they are more likely to sustain damage if temperatures drop rapidly or if they were pruned recently. Temperatures below 0 degrees Fahrenheit degrees Celsius can spell trouble for some peach trees.
Temperatures below degrees Fahrenheit degrees Celsius can damage the wood of peach trees. On the other hand, mild winters are another situation that can prevent peach trees from producing fruit. The reason is that a peach tree needs a certain number of chilling hours each winter. A chilling hour is an hour between 32 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit 0 to 18 degrees Celsius.
Temperatures around 47 degrees Fahrenheit 8 degrees Celsius seem to contribute more to chilling hours than temperatures that are much higher or lower. According to the Penn State University Extension, peach trees may need to chilling hours each winter.
Otherwise, they will not break dormancy in the spring, leading to a complete lack of flowers and fruit that year. One other hazard to your peach harvest is a late spring frost.
A cold snap after a peach tree breaks dormancy in the spring can kill all of the flowers on the tree. In fact, this happened to our peach trees a couple of times over the past few years. If the tree flowers too early during a mild winter, a late spring frost can kill all of the flowers and destroy any chance of a peach harvest that year. Before purchasing peach trees online, make sure that your climate gets enough chilling hours in the winter to produce fruit, while also staying warm enough to keep the tree alive.
For more information, check out this article on chilling hours from the University of California. Avoid letting the soil get too dry for too long if you have young peach trees. If you have a problem with dry soil, check out my article on preventing dry soil. On the other hand, over watering can spell death for your peach tree, due to root rot or fungal diseases. For more information, check out my article on over watering. For older peach trees, give them deep, infrequent waterings. This stimulates the root system to grow deeper and wider, rather than remaining shallow and staying near the surface of the soil.
This will help the tree to survive periods of drought or neglect. Before you plant a peach tree, add some compost to your soil. These are the peaches generally found in the grocery stores. Cling peaches, which have the stone embedded in the flesh, are the peaches used for canning.
Stones of both type can be planted to create a peach tree, and the tree will flourish without another nearby as it is self-pollinating. Peach trees take from two to four years to bear fruit from the time they are planted. Depending on the weather conditions, tree variety and chilling hours of the tree, blossoms appear in early spring, and the fruit appears three to five months later.
The buds are formed the previous year, go into dormancy during the winter, and explode in the spring. A tree that produces heavily one year will not produce much the following year, which is why pruning and trimming are vital to a generous crop production.
Pruning relieves the tree from using too much energy on too many fruits and enables it to focus on those that remain. When the trees reach the required number of chill hours for their variety, the next warm spell causes them to produce flower buds. The fewer chill hours a peach tree needs, the sooner it produces flower buds in spring. Most peach tree varieties need to chill hours. If your peach trees do not receive enough chill hours, their flowers may not open or they may have only a few flowers that open.
Picking a peach tree variety that has chill hour requirements slightly below the number of chill hours your area receives is important to prevent damage to the trees and their developing flower buds. If your peach trees have enough chill hours and "wake up" during a warm spell at the end of winter, the flower buds they produce could be damaged by late-winter freezes.
Each stage of flower development is increasingly more susceptible to subfreezing temperatures.
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