Peach as bonsai ?

onlyrey

Mame
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There is very little about peaches (Prunus persica) as bonsai. A couple of threads in the forum give me mich hope, but what the heck, I bit the bullet and bought this Peach 30 gallon one for the trunk and nebari (I know it is grafted, and still wanted it). A manager at the home depot was deeply trobled when I chopped the tree down to the stump and though I was a diranged customer... still, I made it home with it. Any hope (for the tree as bonsai) ?
 

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Tieball

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Probably not your usual fruit tree pruning. Always shocking....especially to the outdoor garden department people. Was it good and healthy?
 

JosephCooper

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Sometimes you just have to try something completely new; They may be similar to blueberry or pear...

Rewarding but a lot of work.

Maybe I'm totally wrong :oops:
 

Dan92119

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What size tree is it supposed to be? Full size, semi dwarf or ultra dwarf? That will tell you a lot about how much growth you will get out of it.
 

theone420

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The biggest problem is escaping an attack by bores.
we replace our peach tree about every 8 years because the damn moth or whatever it is bores its eggs in the v's of the tree. We got some new pesticide that is supposed to prevent it but we already have them in this tree(this tree has a few more years left) so we wont know if it works for another few years when the next peach tree is ready.
 

Stan Kengai

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The problem with peach trees is that they are not very vigorous and are very susceptible to disease and pests. Not saying they couldn't make a decent bonsai. Just know that going in.
 

Bonsai Nut

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The problem with peach trees is that they are not very vigorous and are very susceptible to disease and pests. Not saying they couldn't make a decent bonsai. Just know that going in.

I have had problems with peaches for that very reason. Now that they have systemic insecticides, I might consider using systemics... but then I would not want to eat the fruit. (I am talking specifically about the peaches I have growing in my orchard area).
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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Peach trees, almost all are grafted because most peach tree varieties (cultivars) are very disease prone. The understock they are grafted to can be peach, apricot or plum. So by chopping below the graft will leave you with a fruit tree, but no guarantee as to what type it is unless that nursery tag mentions the type of understock.

I have enough trouble keeping a landscape peach tree healthy, I am certain as bonsai it would be even more problematic. This is the reason you don't see them often as bonsai. Otherwise my guess they would take to bonsai techniques about as well as Ume. Imagine an Ume with larger leaves and slightly more coarse branch structure. Best for medium to large size bonsai, if you have the right climate where disease issues are not a problem.

At the group owned ''family farm'', the farm is in the commercial peach growing area. I haven't tried any peaches there yet as we only picked up the property end of 2015. If I were to do it again, I would air layer the peach cultivar off its unterstock. And then try to use the air layer as my bonsai. This way it will be true to type.. The flowers of peach are a wonderful pink, and different than Ume or any of the others.

Apricots, the culinary fruit, not ume, are much more disease resistant than peaches, and are moderately common as ''own root'' trees, not just grafted trees. The apricots bloom just ahead of the peaches. Fruit of apricot is smaller, more in scale for a bonsai than a peach would be, should you choose to let the fruit develop. Some of the flowering plums have flower colors similar to peach, if the flower color was the reason you wanted a peach bonsai.

One can also plant peach pits, my understanding is they only take 5 to 8 years from seed to start blooming. They bloom from seed much quicker than apples, which can take up to 15 to 25 years to bloom from seed. This is one way to get peaches without graft scars on the trunk.
 

the1only

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Brief history for this tree. It was dug up about 3 years ago and planted in ground in a 5g nursery pot. Taken off the ground over a year ago, and I planted in the bonsai pot. I have not done any trimming or clipping since in the bonsai pot only giving it fertilizer and dormant spray in Oct. and Dec. last year. Early Jan. the tree has maybe 7-8 flowers, and the last 2 weeks it was putting out leafs very vigorously. I am planning find a slight bigger pot and do some trimming this year. Pic. was taken this morning.
peach1.jpgpeach2.jpg
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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@the1only - nice, looks to have some potential.

When you photograph a bonsai, best angle is to have the camera lens level or slightly above the rim of the pot. That would allow one to see more of the trunk.

Next time you repot, you need to plant this tree deeper. All those fine roots will likely die, leaving you an unattractive nebari.
 

onlyrey

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So I chopped the peach, a bit higher so to give it a chance to budback on more places and I only got a single branch kind of low. When it branched out I did an attempt at thread-grafting, here is the picture. Hopefuly it wasn’t too late in the game. When I drilled, the trunk had a good amount of green at every hole. It took a couple of weeks for the threaded branches to fill-in. Here’s a picture.
 

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Kurt Parker

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Leaves are usually TOO large for bonsai. Fruit way too large. Yes, apricot...
I'd try once...
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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That's why we defoliate.

What's with the ''we'' stuff, you were not the person showing your work, let the original posters explain how they got their results, you are merely presuming. Both posters are in Florida, you are in California, unlikely you would have been in their yards to witness how they achieved their results.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but rather point out that you should dial back your sense of ownership of other people's efforts. Yes this is a ''community'' but please give people the chance to explain what they did.
 

Melospiza

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What about a apricot? Would they be any better than a peach?

Prunus mume, one of the most prized trees for bonsai, is after all, Japanese apricot. I guess what I am saying is that, the reason this plant or that is not popular for bonsai is that over 100s of years, people have found other plants better suited for bonsai and prefer to stick to them. In the case of peach, the leaves are very long and narrow, and the internodes are long, resulting in coarse branching.
 
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