 |
Prunus persica var. nucipersica |
 |
| Synonym(s) |
Prunus persica nectarina |
| Common name |
nectarine |
| Family |
rosaceae |
| Life cycle |
tree |
| Flowers |
pink |
| Light |
sun |
Among the first trees we planted in our back yard, as part of our original orchard, our two nectarins have been a bit of a disappointment. They've certainly grown strongly, and treat us to a nice display of blossoms in early spring – just a week after our apricot tree starts the show. But in the fruit-bearing department, they have been quite unsuccessful. Things start off promising enough, with small firm fruits growing all along the branches in early summer. But then, when warm weather arrives, so does a fungal disease (I think I once figured out it was "brown rot"), that covers the fruits in a fuzzy mold, causing most of them to drop early (and the rest to mummify up in the air). While this has provided my kids with an endless supply of projectiles (they used to call them "coconuts" for some unknown reason) with which to pelt each other in their battles with neighborhood friends, I was rather hoping to sink my teeth into some juicy smooth-skinned stone fruit.
A year or two, I tried spraying the trees with an organic fungicidal concoction, but this yielded no apparent improvement in the situation. Undoubtedly in part because the trees are quite substantial, so getting to all of the trees branches was near impossible.
Since then, I've given up, and just enjoy the flowers in spring; but I'd be better off with a sterile tree that doesn't drop hundreds of hard fruitlets. At some point, the trees may be edited out of our landscape – for now, and as long as our kids are of adventurous age, their status as good climbing trees protects their livelihood.
|
We left this plant behind in our Pennsylvania garden (and wish it well); we don't grow it in Houston. About my plant portraits
PlantLinks to other web pages about Prunus persica var. nucipersica
I welcome comments about my web pages; feel free to use the form below to
leave feedback about this particular page. For the benefit of other visitors
to these pages, I will list any relevant comments you leave, and if
appropriate, I will update my page to correct mis-information. Faced with an
ever-increasing onslaught of spam, I'm forced to discard any comments including
html markups. Please submit your comment as plain text. If you have a
comment about the website as a whole, please leave it in my
guestbook. If you
have a question that needs a personal response, please
e-mail me.
|
