Planting a peach? tree in Zone 6b

January 3, 2021 11:35 PM

I want to plant a fruit tree in my lawn in zone 6b. I am not much of a gardener, and I don't have tons of spare time, so I would prefer for it to be easy to care for. I have a slight preference for a peach tree, but would be happy to switch to apple if they are easier. Gardeners of Metafilter, please weigh in on the following:

(1) Ideally, I would like to get a sapling so that it is hardier, and there are fewer years to wait for fruit, is there any downside to that?

(2) Where should I acquire a tree? Is fastgrowingtrees.com an ok place to get one, or are there other online sources you would recommend? Or is it much better to get a sapling at a nursery?

(3) Which variety of peach (or apple) should I plant for maximum deliciousness?

(4) I do not want more than one tree, what varieties will self pollinate effectively?

(5) What does the seasonal care of a fruit tree involve?

I'd also love to hear more about anything I am missing in these questions, but that you think I should know.

posted by MFZ to Home & Garden (13 answers total)

1. Trees are usually either grown in the ground and dug out and sold bare root, or grown in bags. In your case I'd buy a bag-grown tree of a good size and you'll be fruitful before two long. It is a good idea to not let fruit mature on very young trees, until year 3; trees can tire themselves and fruit poorly for everymore.

Dig a square hole a bit bigger than pot/bag , loosen bottom of hole, remove bag, check roots not spiralling at base ( ask here if that's the case), and plant tree, firming soil as you backfill.

2. I never buy trees for nice purposes from generic nurseries; a specialist nursery would know local soils, climate etc and be able to match a cultivar to your garden.

Also consider pears, tough, climate proof, usually get a crop no matter what.
posted by unearthed at 4:00 AM on January 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

My father planted an orchard in NJ of about 8 different kinds of trees:plum, peach, apple, pear. We never did get a continuing crop of fruit from any of them. Dad took one example of spoiled fruit to the agricultural extension service, and they said the fix would be to chop down every cedar tree for miles around.

The folks down south seem to have better luck with citrus. One of my grandparents had better success with apples in Massachusetts.

A family friend was a tree expert. He once described to me the regimen that commercial orchards used apple trees. In involved spraying several times a year.

You need expert, local advice. Google or ask around about an extension service, and/or try universities within a reasonable radius. The experts who advise local farmers will probably talk to you for free. It's not just climate, it's also what diseases are endemic to your area.

FWIW, I think apples are easier than peaches, and unearthed may well be right about pears.

Our local nursery here in CT had a bing cherry tree, and I was tempted, but it would grow too large for the space on our lawn.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:30 AM on January 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Absolutely go to your ag school's extension service. It will have the best local knowledge and the shared experience of homeowners in your area as to what has worked for others. In my limited experience, fruit baring trees are demanding and difficult and unreliable, even with the best cultivars. Growing a single tree--as opposed to an orchard--is rarely worthwhile. But good luck!
posted by tmdonahue at 5:52 AM on January 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

unearthed is absolutely right about where to acquire this tree. Many cultivars of peach have been bred for specific weather conditions (e.g., particular chill hour requirements) and only a knowledgeable local shop can help you figure out what's best for your yard. And same for SemiSalt's suggestion to talk to your local ag extension and/or university.

I'm down in Zone 9 so don't know anything about apples but I will say that, in my experience, peaches are a pretty unsatisfying fruit to grow, because squirrels and birds will steal nearly your entire crop of fruit every single year. Unless you plan on aggressively netting your tree, or training a team of falcons to protect your yard, I'd consider a tree that makes a bigger proliferation of fruit, so much that no amount of critters could fully strip it out. Maybe a mulberry, for instance.
posted by saladin at 5:54 AM on January 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I have one "dwarf" sour cherry we planted in my backyard in Buffalo, NY ten years ago. We bought it as a sapling and started getting fruit in just a year or two. It now produces an obscene amount of fruit and is about 25 feet tall. We have never sprayed it and the fruit is delicious.

In answer to your specific questions:
1. No downside to buying a sapling IMO.
2. I would definitely buy from a local nursery as they will be able to offer you their professional advice about your particular situation.
3. I wanted a peach tree but ended up choosing the sour cherry because bugs/disease issues with peach trees.
4. and 5. Ask your local professionals. They'll be happy to point out varieties that will self pollinate and also thrive in your climate. Same with seasonal care advice.

One thing you might be missing is BIRDS. They will eat all of your fruit if they like it. I love birds, but if I loved my cherries more (and didn't hate getting up on a high ladder) I would use bed sheets to tent the tree every year as the fruit ripens. Don't use netting as birds can get trapped in it.

Also, mess. Any fruit that drops and doesn't get cleaned up promptly rots where it lies.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 6:01 AM on January 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

I had transplanted two peach trees from a property being re-developed (friend was the builder) and lost both to fungus - here in the midwest apparently peaches are incredibly vulnerable and need to be sprayed. Everything I've heard says apples are easier.
posted by leslies at 6:49 AM on January 4, 2021

I have both, but live farther south. For ease of growing, nothing beats a peach tree. Yes bugs and birds eat a a lot of my crop. My other issues is that my peach tree fruits the first sunny day in January, so normal frosts regularly kill my crop. But when it does fruit, it produces an insane amount of fruit I am picking in April/early May timeframe. A friend in Boston has one that he picks in July. I'm slightly jealous. A peach tree self-pollinates, and you have to do lots of trimming because they are aggressive branch growers and you are supposed to 'shape' them (or not in my experience) to maximize fruit. They will produce fruit on any dinky little branch they can, so while they are fruiting they droop a lot.
My peach tree is dwarf, its about 8 years old and is about 15-20 feet high.


All of this is in contrast to my apple tree, that is now 4 years old, is still small slow grower (but healthy) and has never even flowered. They don't flower or fruit until they are strong enough to hold heavy apples, which can be many many years. They also don't take well to pruning - if you prune the wrong branch, the entire tree will not fruit. Apple trees require chill hours - mine requires 250 hours of temperatures below around 40F, which is on the very low end. Most varieties require more chill hours. My apple tree is also a dwarf, and only about 6 feet tall.

I personally vastly prefer my peach tree to my apple tree.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:00 AM on January 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

I nth speaking to your local Extension service. I am in zone 7, so close to you, and I will tell you we successfully grow many apple trees, several pears and cherries (though it’s true-you will fight birds for cherries) and we have never been successful with peaches. They require a lot of care and spraying and just haven’t done well-and I hear that from local gardening friends frequently. On the other hand, we find apples to grow easily, and they have produced after just a few years.
posted by purenitrous at 8:36 AM on January 4, 2021

To move the labor around in a way that might be better for you, consider the extremely heavy early pruning in Grow a Little Fruit Tree. For one thing, it prunes so heavily that you don’t need a dwarfing rootstock, so you can optimize rootstocks for your soil and diseases.

Check with Extension about that too - the author and I are in gentle, fruit-friendly climates. But you could swathe a ten foot tree...

Counter argument, you don’t get the beautiful huge specimen tree; counter counter argument, unless you are very brave with ladders and bird-scaring, you don’t get most of the fruit off those.
posted by clew at 9:51 AM on January 4, 2021

I'm in 6a, but we've had great luck with plums, very delicious.
posted by lab.beetle at 9:51 AM on January 4, 2021

Best answer: I would research and seek out the most reliable local garden center that specializes in fruit trees, then pick their brains. Do not buy from some website that will just send a tree. Think of it as an investment (it is an investment!) and you want to make sure you will get something that will thrive and produce in your specific location. You will most likely spend quite a bit more, but in the end it will be worth it. Having a relationship with a brick and mortar seller can also mean having some kind of guarantee that your tree will produce, and they might even be able to send someone out to help you prune it correctly (or do other maintenance) for a fee. Or advise you if/when you get pests or diseases, etc. All these things are worth spending money on.

I work at a garden center that does these kinds of things, so I know that services like this do exist. Our "tree experts" do these visits on a freelance basis (slip them some cash on their day off) and people who are genuinely knowledgeable about these things are enthusiastic about good results. I dream of having a peach tree some day. But consider dwarf apple trees or sour cherry trees, too. There are some amazing dwarf sour cherry trees (NOTE: dwarf tree does NOT necessarily mean tiny tree) that produce the most intensely flavorful fruit imaginable.

We have "rose people" that do freelance visits for roses, too. Be friendly and full of questions. And take photos of the desired location, and make notes about sun exposure, other trees nearby. Bring more info than you think you need. And FFS, do not plant it too close to your house!

Us gardeners take this stuff seriously.
posted by SoberHighland at 12:37 PM on January 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

I’m in zone 4 and have only seen one sad looking peach tree in my neighborhood, but I have a single plum tree and multiple apple trees in my yard. My plum tree is a self-pollinating variety (Mount Royal), and it’s a fine looking front-yard tree. I pruned it low like in the book clew linked above, and it looks nice and finally fruited 4 years later! The only downside is that the Japanese beetles eat up tons of leaves.

I have apple trees in a less sunny space planted closely together and pruned low (like in the book), and they are much less beautiful to look at. They also fruited 4 years later, but getting to that point was harder. I don’t spray with chemicals, so I tried bagging up the apples on the tree to prevent apple maggots (per my local extension office’s advice). Half of the apples fell off the tree in the months after I bagged them, and the bags were annoying (I’m trying another kind next year). The couple dozen apples that made it were fantastic, but it was truly a labor of love. Tons of pruning, winter rabbit-proof fencing, manual aphid killing, fruit thinning, and apple bagging were required.

If I lived a zone warmer I’d try to grow nectarines for the fun of it, or a montmorecy cherry tree. If you can find bare root saplings locally, give it a shot! Mine only cost about $30 a piece, and if I get 30 pieces of fruit from each before the tree or I die I will be more than happy. A worthy experiment in my book. (The bare root saplings I got were the same size as the $100 potted trees sold in the city garden stores and had the same exact grower tags on them. I’d be less excited about mail-order saplings, but who knows.)
posted by Maarika at 6:06 PM on January 4, 2021

Agree with those above who say look to local resources, but wanted to add that a lawn is a poor fit for a fruit tree. Make sure you leave a large mulch ring, do not girdle the tree with weed whips. Never ever use Weed n feed or any other broadleaf herbicide on the lawn because it will damage the tree. Too much nitrogen from lawn fertilizers will push leaves at the expense of fruit, and attracts pests and pathogens (this is true of any plant). Ideally, fruit trees are given deep, infrequent watering which is often incompatible with lawn watering regimes. I would make sure to let the professionals you talk to know this so they can suggest the best rootstock, a peach with good disease resistance, and how to deal with the different watering regimes.

I would also say that IMO, peaches are among the most high maintenance fruit trees. They must be sprayed three times a year with fungicide to prevent leaf curl. I find plums, pluots and apricots to be easier (in that order). Plums are lessy fussy about wet feet and don't get leaf curl. Santa Rosa produces at a young age, and if you want to get fancy you can get a weeping one (which is easy to harvest and looks stunning when in bloom). We made tons of jam from our weeping Santa Rosa plum last year.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:36 PM on January 4, 2021