Peaceful Valley is not that bad, I would not feel bad ordering from them. Or get O'Henry, an excellent late peach. Or Late Crawford.

Scott

Cityman,

I have gotten a few trees from Peaceful Valley. They have all done just fine so far. And when you say 2 weeks, you mean 2 weeks from the time they should break in your area, or 2 weeks from delivery? If I remember reading my invoice correctly I had to file a claim by june maybe?.?.? But other than that they have been perfect to work with. Where did you happen to see such bad ratings?

If you can try a different peach why don't you look at some of the peaches Grandpas has to offer. They carry the PF Flamin Fury series of peaches. But looking at Fairtime on DW ripening chart it seems that nothing is really going to match its late harvest.....

Thanks to you both for letting me know Peaceful Valley is a decent vendor. Their return policy is that you can only put a claim in between May 15 and June 1. Not before or after. I'm used to having a full year with the other vendors I use, so this seemed like an awful guarantee to me.
O'Henry is an outstanding suggestion-it has a great reputation, is more popular, and is already on my substitution list. But it is about 3 weeks to a month earlier than fairtime. I just now noticed that indian free is almost as late a fairtime, and while its an unusual looking peach I know several of you folks like it (I think Ms. G has it among others). SO perhaps that would be a good very late season option?
I'd still love any more info on finding fairtime OR a good very late season variety. Also any comments on Indian Free. Thanks

I'll just add on and ask for opinions as I put one (Indian Free) in last year. I hear it's an outstanding peach, but unsure what to expect.

Indian Free is awesome, its one of my favorite peaches. It has an unusual flavor, something like cranberries thrown into the usual peach flavor mix.

Remember Peaceful Valley is in CA, so if a tree is not going by May 15th its pretty much dead. I have bought from them for years, they are not the best on customer service but are generally well-run and work hard to get things right.

Scott

Indian Free is a connoisseur peach. I had trouble raising it here. It was very sensitive to bacterial spot and it cracked.

It's apparently easier to grow for Scott.

It might do fine in TN, since it would harvest much earlier in the season. In the late season, it gets wetter here, with more dew and rain, so it can be more difficult to grow late varieties.

Encore is a bit later than O'Henry and does well. Autumnstar is later still and is a very good peach.

Paul Friday has some very late peaches (+50) like Big George and Fashionably Late, but I've never tried them.

olpea,

Do you know where to even find those varieties? The only place I know to buy PF FF's is Grandpa's.. And I don't even see those listed.

Encore and Autumn Star are available from Adams County Nursery, but they are sold out of the majority of their varieties. I would run with one of those varieties first and try out the west coast bacterial spot susceptible types once I had them working. That is what I'm doing here.

Encore is a really good and reliable peach when temps are warm here in late Sept. Good enough when conditions aren't so favorable. I'm waiting to sample Autumn Star and hope it is as good here as in Kansas.

Olpea has a better situation in some ways than I do for comparing peach variety taste because all his trees are in almost the same fully exposed conditions in, at most, two distinct soils.

I've ordered DWN trees from Peaceful Valley twice. Good shipping, all trees in good condition and leafed out. Would order again from them (if I had room to plant more trees :)

I live in Northern California zone 8-9. I pulled my Indian Free peach tree this year. It has a hard time in this climate. Summerset is another late peach.
I have a Kaweah on order ( peaceful valley sells it). I have heard good things about both Kaweah and TraZee which both are late August peaches.

My latest peach is Sweet September. It follows Fairtime. Haven't fruited it yet. I think it would be too late for many zone 6/7 locations. It's not widely available like many DWN varieties.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sweet September

Yeah.. I'm worried myself with my PF-35 in my zone. Lol.

I'm in Illinois and I have ordered from Peaceful Valley many times. Last year with the nationwide polar vortex situation, 4 out of 8 bare roots were dead and I called them up before the deadline, June 1st or 15th (I forgot), they honored their warranty as stated. I've very happy with their customer service. Absolutely no problem there!

The only thing that I'll have to reconsider is they sent out my order at the end of December while spring in Illinois is like 3 months away. So that puts the responsibility to keep the trees alive and dormant on the owner. I hope this batch of fruit trees currently in a bucket full of moist wood chips are alive until spring!

I also have ordered twice at Burnt Ridge and had a warranty claim 2 years ago. I've put in an order this year with Burnt Ridge and they told me that they won't ship until thaw out in April. Again, they honored the warranty, even it was 2 years ago!

Given uneven spring time arrival from north to south, the northern folks like myself probably benefited with the later shipping date! But kudos to both nurseries for their business commitment!

That's just my 2 cents...

All of this is outstanding information and I'm very grateful to get it! I would like to second the comment from sean regarding Paul Friday varieties.... I've looked closely at them many times and was already wishing I could get a Big George or other, but Grandpa's doesn't have it. and none of the other vendors Paul lists has it. AS always, Olpea's info was especially helpful. I was sorry to hear you(he) didn't have great luck with Indian free, especially when Scottfsmith gave it such high marks. It stinks when 2 of the best peach advisors here have different experiences! ha. Anyway, thanks again for all the info everyone. I hope this thread will help others now or in the future who are looking for late peaches.

Cityman,

It looks to me Grandpa's appears to have Big George available. At least it seems to "add to cart". I may order the variety myself, just try it out.

http://www.grandpasorchard.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=trees.plantDetail&plant_id=284

If I were you I would try Indian Free. I bet it will work fine in your area. I'm even considering planting it again (in spite of it's grower problems) because I have more room, than when I originally pulled it out.

Thanks, Olpea....no idea how I missed that other than I've been to so many sites looking for so many things that I guess I just got confused. I'm going to try one I do believe!

Looks like Big George ripens up around the same time as the other two late varieties PF offers.

I added Big George last year from Cummins. I don't see it there now, but they have 8 other PF varieties.

Olpea- Maybe I didn't miss Big George on Grandpa's web site? Or am I blind? I just went to order it and I cannot find it! Am I missing something? Thanks.

I'm an idiot. :) Found it.