ornamental Corinthian peach fruiting

15 years ago

My first Corinthian 'Pink' peach tree I planted in Spring of '07 did not produce any larger than peanut sized fruits which dropped from the tree and quickly became unnoticable.

Is this normal and the type of insignificant fruiting which should be expected from ornamental Corinthian peach trees?

If so what could be causing the tree to produce significantly larger fruit this year?

Early last winter after a few consecutive days of freezing rain occured and signifacant ice accumulated in the canopy, the tree became uprooted on one side and fell over, pulling one entire side of the root ball out of the ground. It took a couple days for the ice to melt enough after the freezing rain event, then I lift the tree. After that it seemed to recover nicely, but I did have to stake it so the tree is able re-establish enough roots on the side which had been ripped from the soil when the tree fell.

The tree bloomed fully this spring and except for a small amount of leaf curl infecting the lower branch leaves, which I quickly removed; now the tree looks to have fully recovered.

Only surpirse was when I saw the tree had produced lots of marble sized green fruit. I pulled most of those off, but the ones I left are now still hard, but close to the size of a golf ball, and they have now turned a dark peach color even though they have not yet become soft.

This fruit seems too large for an ornamental tree to be producing. I would have thought the cause for this unually large fruit was due to the tree's proliferation need reaction like lots of trees do when they experinece enough stress for them to produce more seeds than normal.

Now though. I am not so certain that it was caused by the stress that the tree suffered over the winter. I say that, because back in late April or very early May, I planted 3 more of these trees in a grouping on the other side the house on that lot. All of these newly planted ones also have produced the same size of unusually large fruit compared to what is expected to be seen on an ornamental tree.

Is this larger fruit normal? We did receive almost 10 inches more than normal rainfall this year so far. But the soil where all four of these trees are planted is very well draining, so their roots should not have expereince too much moisture.

Still could the extra rain be the factor for the larger fruit, or is it more likly an indicator that, like the first ornamental peach I plant in 07, the ornamental peach trees I planted this Spring had also been stressed before I ever purchased them, and are now simply reacting the same way my '07 planted tree is reacting.

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Comments (6)

Embothrium
15 years ago
These are new and will not be widely grown and experienced. As for ornamental peaches in general the ornamental designation refers to them having showier flowers than cultivars selected strictly for orchard use. While some do have inferior fruit quality at least a few others can be considered dual purpose. Calling them ornamental varieties does not autumatically indicate a lack of fruits by any means. Read descriptions of the one you have to see what is to be expected.

And even if there is not much indication elsewhere of the fruiting behavior you are getting I guess if you are getting it then that tells you that variety does in fact produce fruits of a certain size - as long as the growth habit and flowering is true to the variety purchased (with unexpected fruiting not being due to having the wrong variety instead).
katrina1
Original Author
15 years ago
Back in 2006 when I first read about this ornamental cultivar, they listed the growing, flowering, and fruiting habits of the tree. They showed a photo of one in full bloom and one past bloom. They also stated that the trees produced only small, not very significant fruit.

During the first growing season of the first ornamental Corinthian 'Pink' I planted in early spring of 2007, this tree displayed flowering, fruiting, and growing form, exactly as the description I read was normal for them. Even the fruits it produced that year only grew to be about half or less than the size of a green grape.

It was only the current Spring in 2008 that the tree is producing what appears like they could end up being almost full-sized peaches.

Corinthian 'Pink' ornamentals stay very thin because their smaller than pencil sized branches grow nearly straight up from the trunk and the tree stays very narrow even in its mature stage.

In fact the branches do not seem like they are strong enough to support regular peach tree sized fruit.

I will be very shocked if the tree continues to produce nearly regular sized fruit again next year.
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katrina1
Original Author
15 years ago
Since the tree in question is an ornamental peach tree, and not documented to be a fruiting peach tree, would it be more likely that people on the "Trees" foram might be better able to answer my question; if not, at least more likely to be familiar with this particualar tree?
bobcat115_citlink_net
13 years ago
Well I bought an unknown variety of flowering peach tree and was surprised to walk by and see golf ball size fuzzy green fruit forming. I was wondering if I was sent the wrong thing. It had beautiful peach pink bloom. I'm hoping the fruit will be good as well!
Isabella Ponticello-Reiss
8 years ago
I have two of the pink Corinthians planted near patio, one fairly near a silver maple. The one near the maple has very droopy leaves? What could cause the droopiness?
Charles Hunter
last year
My Corinthian pink peach tree produced 5 golfball-suzed fruits last fall theee seeds germinated this year,2022, im I’m hoping fir 25 juicy very tasty peaches