Fruit & edible · North Texas care guide
Prunus persica
Nursery Pro tip: Pick low-chill varieties for Rockwall. Needs drainage and a February prune.
Pink blossoms in February and March, fruit in June and July, on a 12–15 ft tree that starts bearing in its third year. North Texas grows excellent peaches — the catch is choosing a variety with the right chill-hour requirement for our winters (roughly 600–850 hours here) and staying on top of pruning and spray.
Full sun — eight hours — and good air movement on a slight rise if you have one; frost settles in low spots and can take the early blossoms. Well-drained soil is essential; peaches will not tolerate wet feet. Keep it 15 ft from other trees. Most varieties we carry are self-fertile, so one tree fruits.
Fall through early spring while dormant. Wide hole, no fertilizer in the hole, root flare at or just above grade, native soil backfill, Root Stimulator, and a wide mulch ring kept off the trunk.
Deep weekly soakings through summer, and especially while the fruit is sizing in May and June — that's when water turns into peach size. Cut back after harvest.
A balanced fertilizer in late winter and again in May for the first few years; mature trees need less. Too much nitrogen gives shoots instead of fruit.
Every February, hard. Peaches fruit on last year's wood, so the goal is an open-center vase — three or four main scaffold limbs, the middle kept open to light, and the tree held to about 8 ft so you can reach the fruit. A peach pruned timidly is a peach you can't pick. Thin the young fruit in April to one every 6 in; it feels ruthless and doubles the size of what's left.
Peach tree borer at the soil line (look for gummy sawdust) and plum curculio, brown rot and peach leaf curl — this is a tree on a season-long spray schedule. Dormant oil in winter only handles scale and overwintering insects; leaf curl needs a fungicide while the tree is dormant, and brown rot and curculio need sprays from bloom through harvest. Ask us for the Texas A&M AgriLife home peach spray schedule. Squirrels and birds take fruit the week before you would.
An orchard corner with apple, fig and pomegranate. Underplant with nothing — keep a clean mulched ring.
Written for Rockwall's black clay, heat and winters by the Landscape Source team. Every yard is different — bring a photo by, or ask LS-Ai, and we'll tailor it to your spot.