If it's a young tree, they are pretty active during the winter months growing their root system, so definitely keep those roots moist. I would cut down on watering during really cold spells though (but you don't get many of those in Phoenix...). I share your frustration about the lack of information when it comes to container-grown trees!

Thanks for the information JoJo, good to know about the root growth! I will also be wary of watering during a cold spell. I had actually heard that watering.can help insulate during cold weather, so this is an about face for me. Thank you for the correction!

I think the idea is that moist soil stays warmer than dry soil, but you don't want it soaking wet so you end up with ice in the container. It's a real balancing act. But you should be OK in Phoenix. I always get freezing nights in January (down to 26 on a regular basis) but only for a couple of hours at night, so the plants hardly notice.

No peaches, but I grow a lot of trees in containers, both deciduous and evergreen. And they all stay outside exposed to the elements all winter. I use a fast draining soil mix (also the 5-1-1) and there has never been a concern about a need to water or the potential of them receiving too much. And this is the pretty winter wet PNW!

And no fertilizing until they start pushing new growth in spring.

That makes sense JoJo. We are regularly in the 30s overnight in Dec and January, but rarely get as low as freezing. Hopefully that will help support my inexperience ;)

PNW to me means Pacific Northwest. Is that where you are Gardengal? I've stopped fertilizing my peach tree, hoping to encourage it into dormancy. I must confess, this whole dormancy thing is really strange to me. It needs colder temps to go dormant, and it won't blossom in the spring if dormancy can't be broken by accruing enough chill hours. We're expecting a warmer than average winter in Phoenix. I'm sure the tree will enter dormancy on its own just fine but it does make me a bit nervous.

Yes, PNW means Pacific Northwest :-) Despite zone similarity, I can't give you any advice about growing peaches in Phoenix. Different cultivars will have different chill hour requirements but most low chill varieties will need at least 500 hours (night time temps below 45F and daytime temps not much above 60F). Dormancy is a very natural biological progression that deciduous trees will take in fall with shorter daylight hours and cooler temps. Maintaining the tree at too warm a temperature can delay or inhibit dormancy. Moving it out of direct sun could help.

Thanks Gardengal, I always appreciate your comments! The bonanza peach requires 250 chill hours and should be fairly safe for Phoenix. I think I just have first time jitters, as well as an unhealthy belief that I have influence over biological processes ;). I currently have the tree in a location that maximizes sun exposure. If it isn't looking like it's headed for dormancy when I return from vacation perhaps I'll move it into a shadier location. I'm thinking a dormant tree (no leaves) has no use for "full sun" exposure, correct?

Travis, I know how you feel! We're also having above normal temps in Nevada, and my apricot and peach have decided now's a good time to produce new growth. They never really enter dormancy gradually -- they just get shocked by the first freeze and lose the leaves afterwards. Now I'm afraid I'll be losing the new shoots as well...

Dormancy is really tricky in the desert but somehow it all works out.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/1739330/will-a-dwarf-peach-tree-survive

Here's a semi-related thread that might help. My cousins own an orchard and, from experience there, I do know that peaches do best when they have friends. Somebody's going to nit-pick and say they self-pollinate because the world is full of nits with pickers. That's Mostly True. They do best when they have friends, not require it. :-)

Watering is mostly, "as required," (so you can read that as "these are not touchy trees") and around here from experience and observation directly, loss of a bit of final growth in frosts or freezes is not something to be overly concerned about--at least with our cultivars.

We're doing Zooms-giving for a bit with my cousins tomorrow and if you have a specific question, I can ask, but although we're zone-similar, the cultivars used here for ag production are very different, and frankly, zonal similarity is completely useless when discussing PA and AZ. (I consider gardening zones absolutely useless once you change main climate types, but that's a story for another day).

Yes, we are too reliant on the USDA hardiness zones as predictors of whether a plant is going to thrive or not. Nobody in their right mind would say Las Vegas, NV and Jacksonville, FL have the same growing conditions. Our last rain was on April 20th for Pete's sake! ; )

ALL the USA hardiness zones do is evaluate the average winter low temperatures....nothing else. So if you are looking for more year round detail, then you can safely ignore them. They can't predict what will 'thrive'.....only what will 'survive' winter. That is all they are intended to do.

One source that can help you judge the suitability of a plant for your area, Travis, is the Sunset Western Garden Book. It covers all of the west, including the desert areas, and takes a much wider range of variables into consideration.......summer heat and humidity, topography, winds, precipitation patterns and totals. Phoenix is a Sunset zone 13.

Personally, I don't even use them to count on what will "survive" the winter. My winter isn't a Zone 7 winter in Arizona or the Intermountain West, and doesn't feature either the dry weather or winds. Mountain heather would rot in the ground. There are simply too many other considerations in play to simplify things to a zone and call it a day and (rather like pH, but for other reasons) I find it a useless metric when applied in a vacuum and without consideration, as it usually is.

It's unfortunate that the education on the zones is quite low; so many people seem to think they apply quite well and use them to instruct others on what will and will not flourish when not in their element, but we'll look forward to improvement on that in the future as the word gets around, I suppose.

I am not a fan of single-dimension variables, let's just put it that way, when the world is...let's just say, generally not single-dimensional. And all that after I said I wouldn't get started! :-)

Gardengal, I'm familiar with the hardiness zones :) Unfortunately, growers and retailers often classify plants based on the zone number, and don't take into account any other info. As a result we have big box stores filled with plants that will not thrive in the area, but the label says "it's good in your zone." And don't get me started on online retailers!

Morpheuspa, I think I've lost more plants to drying winds than any other factor...

...and I've lost more plants to soaking wet winters than any other factor. :-)

We regularly get shipments of that aforementioned Mountain Heather. It's beautiful. Gorgeous. It's not going to survive a month around here when winter hits because it's irregularly cold at best (we may hit ten, but only a few times), and when it snows, we get buried. There are no drying winds. The soil is soaked from now until April. You'd think retailers and the allegedly educated would take more care, but they just don't. It drives me nuts.

Zone 6B/7A, sure. To get technical, it's nice to use vector sums, but if you aren't exposing the vectors used...they simply don't help out much (again, why pH is also a useless data point).

Not to mention the fact that the simple lowest point isn't particularly a useful number...the actual average (and standard distribution) is very, very significant in terms of what's going to make it through the winter happily.

Sorry, this is really wandering way OT from watering a peach tree, which is definitely in its proper zone and will be just fine.

JoJo and morpheuspa, my little peach tree (named Herman) also put on some new growth in the last couple of weeks that I'm sure won't survive the winter, but I am just happy to see it thriving after I brought it home and repotted it. I wanted to see some signs of growth to indicate its roots had settled into their new home before it goes dormant. Glad to hear that some winter loss is okay.
Gardengal, I'll check out the Sunset Western Garden Book. This is not the first time I've heard it mentioned, so it must be good.

You can do it, Herman! Have a great Thanksgiving, everybody!

Happy Thanksgiving!

And to you and Herman as well!

;)