A stunted looking peach tree

[sgtsheart]

Now for the peach tree question.
Peach trees usually do pretty well in this area. The one we have inside the yard fence however is small, stunted looking and produces maybe 1 or two peaches a season. The peaches it produces are small and usually fall off before they ever get close to ripe.
I don't know what's wrong with this tree. It is planted pretty darn close to a hibiscus bush that is the hibiscus bush from he**. The bush is at least 5 feet in diameter and stands well over 6 foot high. Biggest hibiscus I've ever seen. It gets plume full of blooms throughout the spring and summer and the bumblebees and hummingbirds love it. Anyhow, back to the peach tree...could the hibiscus be sucking up all the good stuff outta the soil and slowly starving the peach tree to death? I like em both, but if I had to pick, the bush would stay and the peach tree would go.
P.S. The hibiscus bush is only rivaled by the forsythia (yellow bell) growing on the other side of the yard. It takes up three panels of fencing and is going to get a serious pruning this week.

 

[patandchickens]

how old is your peach tree? they are not usually very long lived, maybe 20-30 years.

or, if it is young, could it have had circling roots when planted?

Duly jealous of people in peach-growing climates (well ok, my m-i-l just south of Toronto and right close to the lake has a peach tree that bears ok but WE get too cold),


Pat

 

[Rosalind]

What kind of peach tree? Most peach trees are self-fruitful, but there are a few varieties that aren't. If it hasn't been near another peach tree in many years, it might not bother to bloom. DH says I have the "Bob Ross school of gardening" mentality, but I can tell you that the fruit trees grouped in an orchard way in the back of my property were covered in blossoms and little green fruits last year, while the established apple a few hundred feet away got one lonely little flower. Which fell off.

This year I'm going to put a small apple near it. Trees "talk" to each other through the soil, too--ahem (puts geek hat on), they are thought to release chemical pheromones through proximal soil interactions--so maybe if the non-blooming apple tree senses a friend, it'll flower. We'll see.

 

[sgtsheart]

how old is your peach tree? they are not usually very long lived, maybe 20-30 years.

or, if it is young, could it have had circling roots when planted?

Duly jealous of people in peach-growing climates (well ok, my m-i-l just south of Toronto and right close to the lake has a peach tree that bears ok but WE get too cold),


Pat

Pat, I think the tree is approx. 10 years old, but small. I'm bettin' his mama started it from a pit. It could have the bound roots, but no way for me to be sure. It's just weak and pitiful looking.
Rosalind, the closest other peach trees are maybe a 1000 yds away in the old orchard. They do fine.

 

[patandchickens]

Honestly, from what you've said my money would be on either a) the Hibiscus or b) it's just a crappy peach tree that will never amount to anything. "Came from the shallow end of the gene pool" so to speak The latter is perfectly possibly if it was from a pit, rather than being a grafted named variety. If this were the case all you could really do is dig it up and replace it with a peach of more known heritage.

OTOH that is kind of drastic.

So if it were me I would probably whack the hibiscus back somewhat *and* try to make the peach's life as cushy as possible next year, by weeding and mulching all around it, top-dressing with some well rotted compost, and fertilizing. In this instance personally I'd feel justified in using a quick-acting nonorganic fertilizer (next year, I mean, not necessarily now). If the tree seemed to respond well to all that, maybe I'd think about axing the hibiscus. But if the tree does not respond then that probalby does not speak well of its chances of ever being productive.

Good luck,

Pat, currently in the low teens F and about to get a big whack of snow and ice.