Gadenin日本語Get the appPlant while the tree is dormant and the ground is workable
Bare-root peaches go in at any point when the tree is leafless and the soil is neither frozen nor sodden, which in most gardens means late autumn through late winter. In mild gardens the earlier end of that window is better, because the roots move a little in soil that is still above 45F (7C) and the tree is already anchored when the buds break. Where winters are hard, wait until late winter so the roots are not sitting in cold wet ground for months doing nothing.
Container-grown trees can technically go in during the growing season, and sometimes that is all you can buy. If you plant one in leaf, accept that you have taken on the watering: a deep soak every four or five days through the first summer, not a splash every evening. A peach planted in leaf and then left to itself in its first dry spell is the most common early loss.
The one condition a peach will not forgive is standing water. Roots held in cold, airless soil rot, and the tree goes backwards for a season before it dies. Dig a hole a foot (30 cm) deep, fill it with water and come back in four hours. If water is still standing, do not plant into that hole at all: build a mound 12 inches (30 cm) high and 3 feet (90 cm) across and plant into the mound.
| Site factor | What you want | What to do if you have not got it |
|---|---|---|
| Drainage | A test hole empties within about four hours | Plant on a raised mound 12 inches (30 cm) high |
| Sun | Six hours of direct sun minimum, all day is better | Move the position rather than accept shade; shaded peaches crop poorly and rot more |
| Shelter | Out of the prevailing wind while the tree is in flower | Put a wall, fence or hedge on the windward side |
| Soil pH | Slightly acid to neutral, 6.0 to 7.0 | Lime a very acid soil the autumn before planting, not on planting day |
| Frost pocket | Not the lowest ground in the garden | Choose a slope or a raised spot so cold air drains past the tree |
A sunny wall is worth more than an extra tree
If you have a warm wall or a solid fence facing the sun, use it. A fan-trained peach on a wall ripens its fruit a good two weeks earlier, sets more heavily because the flowers are out of the wind, and holds warmth into the evening. The decisive advantage, though, is that a flat tree against a flat surface can be covered from midwinter to late spring with a sheet of clear plastic on battens, and that cover is the single most effective thing anyone does about peach leaf curl.
Plant 8 to 10 inches (20 to 25 cm) out from the foot of the wall, not against it. The strip directly at the base of a wall stays dry even in wet weather because the wall throws the rain clear. Lean the stem towards the wall at about twenty degrees so the head of the tree sits over the wall while the roots sit in ground that actually gets wet.
A free-standing tree in the open is not a mistake, but understand what you are accepting: you will either build a temporary frame over it each winter or you will manage leaf curl by tolerating it and feeding the tree back into health each summer.
Depth: the graft union never goes under the soil
Almost every peach is grafted, and the swollen kink low on the stem is the join. If that join is buried, the top variety puts out its own roots above the graft, the rootstock stops controlling the tree, and you get a large, over-vigorous tree that is slow to fruit and prone to rot at the buried join. Keep the union 3 to 4 inches (8 to 10 cm) clear of the finished soil surface and check it again a month later, once the soil has settled.
- Dig wide, not deep Make the hole two to three times the width of the roots but only as deep as the roots themselves. Loose soil underneath the rootball compacts later and the whole tree sinks, which is how a graft union ends up buried without anyone burying it.
- Break the sides of the hole If you are digging in clay, score the smooth sides of the hole with a fork. A glazed hole in clay behaves like a pot with no drainage hole, and roots circle inside it instead of leaving.
- Sit the tree on undisturbed ground Set the roots on the floor of the hole with a cane laid across the top to check the level. The old soil mark on the stem should sit level with the surrounding ground, and the graft union well above it.
- Backfill with the soil you took out Do not fill the hole with rich bought compost. A pocket of soft compost in firm ground keeps the roots inside the pocket. Mix in a little well-rotted manure at most, and firm the soil in layers with your heel as you go.
- Stake low and short Drive a stake in at an angle away from the roots and tie the trunk about 18 inches (45 cm) up, no higher. A low tie lets the trunk flex and thicken. Remove the stake after two or three years.
- Water once, thoroughly Two full watering cans poured slowly at the base settle the soil into the roots better than any amount of firming. After that, water only when the top 2 inches (5 cm) of soil is dry.
Do not put fertilizer in the planting hole. Nitrogen at planting drives soft growth on a tree that has no roots to support it, and soft growth is exactly what canker and aphids attack. Wait until the tree is growing away in its first summer.
Spacing, and the shape you are committing to
Space by the shape you intend to keep, not by the size of the tree you are holding. A peach is pruned hard every single year, so the tree you plant looks nothing like the tree you will have, and the distance you leave now determines whether you can walk round it to thin and pick.
Whatever the form, leave enough room that you can stand inside the drip line with both hands free. Peaches demand annual pruning and heavy fruit thinning, and any tree you have to fight your way into simply does not get done.
| Form | Spacing between trees | Final height | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fan on a wall or fence | 12 to 15 feet (3.5 to 4.5 m) | 7 to 8 feet (2.1 to 2.4 m) | Cool gardens, and anywhere leaf curl is bad enough to need winter cover |
| Open-center bush | 15 to 18 feet (4.5 to 5.5 m) | 8 to 10 feet (2.4 to 3 m) | Warm gardens with room; the easiest form to prune well |
| Dwarf tree in a large pot | One tree per pot of 18 inches (45 cm) or more | 5 to 6 feet (1.5 to 1.8 m) | Patios and small gardens, and where the tree must be moved under cover in winter |
The first two summers, and what to write down
For the first two seasons the job is roots, not fruit. Keep a circle of bare, mulched ground 3 feet (90 cm) across at the base with nothing growing in it; grass right up to the trunk will halve the growth of a young peach. Mulch 2 to 3 inches (5 to 8 cm) deep with compost or bark, pulled back a hand's width from the trunk so the bark stays dry.
Remove any fruit that sets in the first year and most of it in the second. It feels wasteful and it is not. A one-year-old tree carrying fruit puts that energy into seed instead of into the framework of branches that will carry twenty crops.
Write down the planting date, exactly where the tree stands, which way the graft union faces and how far the union sits above the soil. In three years, when you are trying to work out whether the tree has sunk, whether the rootstock has thrown a sucker, or simply how old the tree is, none of that is recoverable from memory. Note the date the buds broke in the first spring too: it becomes your baseline for judging whether a later season is early or late.