Lookin' good! Its funny you are ten days ahead, I am at least a week behind this year.

Scott

Looks good, Frank. Up near Green Bay, my raspberry buds are opening, and my peach (Belle of Georgia) leaf buds are opening as well. My only apple so far to show any life is my Chenango Strawberry. My pears and my apricot (Harcot) aren't doing anything yet.
These 70 degree days kind of scare me in April, knowing we could easily get into the mid 20's at night for at least 2 more weeks, but I have a good feeling about this year.

Your trees look really good. Mine are all over the map. Plums don't look like they're even thinking of breaking dormancy yet. Apricots look the same, but here and there there is a deep red/pink bud like in your picture. One pear has some buds that look to be a week behind yours, others are just starting to stretch their buds. Cherries all have swelling buds and look good. Peaches don't show much sign of breaking dormancy yet, and the flower buds probably got fried over the winter. Since the frost went out of the ground, some of the branches on the peaches have dried up. Watered everything well last week and I hope that will keep the trees happy for a while.

On the other hand, the McIntosh apple is really swelling and I even noticed a dot of pink in a tightly wound bud today. All the other apples still look dormant but the buds have gotten "hairy" like they are starting to grow.

Hopefully all of these things will wait another 2 weeks or so to bloom to reduce the chances of sub-20 degree temps.

Flowering doesn't automatically mean fruit. My cherry has flowered beautifully every year, and while the insects were out, too, but I didn't get any cherries until last year (its 5th year), and even then, I only got two.

On the other hand, my peach tree bore heavily every year including last year... when it died of sunscald. I had to thin the peaches quite a bit every year but the first two.

I hope things fare better for you! :) And yes, gotta love it when after a long, cold winter those trees finally break bud. It's such a wonderful sight.

Hey... on the subject of the cherry tree.... I was thinking that an additional pollinator might be the key (even though it's supposed to be self-pollinating). And it occurred to me... the exposed 2" or so of the rootstock are always trying to put out branches, which we've cut off. But... if I actually let some grow and flower, wouldn't that be a second pollinator? :) It has different genetics, after all, so as long as they flowered at the same time...

Fruit bore very heavily last year...all of them.

This year we had one cold winter night [-15°] and plums have bloomed but are much thinner than normal. The cold night seems to have killed all the peach blooms. Blackberries are heavily killed back. Raspberries are looking fairly good. Blueberries and strawberries look good. Apples are loaded with bloom buds. Pears and cherries look good so far.

Just a heads up, but i noticed HomeDepot finally is carrying a good peach to grow (try), that being "Contender" Trees looked nice and were only $20...grown in TN...

Couple of cool days here (49F high ystrday/today 50F)should help delay some of this stuff. Still looking like 3 70F+ days, maybe even 80F or better... later this week.