Peach stones.

may321, Mar 8, 5:24am
I was given lots of peaches off a friends tree. was wondering if i could just put the peach stone in the garden will it grow. information would be great. do you let them dry out. or what can i do to get a successful little tree growing.
may321, Mar 8, 8:04am
bumping this message.
coop19, Mar 8, 10:12am
At this time of the year every year (today in fact) we bottle our Golden Queen peaches. The stones and waste get tossed onto the compost heap and every spring dozens of them sprout. I pot off some of the bigger and better shaped ones to give away and the odd one to replace trees here. G/Queens being one of the old varieties grow true from stones. A lot of the newer type trees do not. Try your stones in some compost or good soil in the garden where they will not get disturbed and ensure they do not dry out. A percentage will grow. Capt Cook gave away peach stones to Maori all over Northern NZ on his first visit and noted their success in growing them in many cases on his second visit here.
cantabman1, Mar 8, 7:21pm
That's interesting, as I noticed a lot growing on the side of the road up there, when I visited last year .
les6, Mar 9, 12:55am
nurseries around here(hawkesbay)get huge quantities of peach stones from watties.they rake them out in huge shallow pits and cover with sand for the winter.come spring they sprout up and are transplanted into rows where they bud onto them the variety they want.
lythande1, Mar 9, 1:21am
Yes you can. It will take absolutely ages to grow though, and be several years before you get any fruit off it. But patience. and it will do so eventually.
aj.2., Mar 9, 1:42am
Yes , just crack the stone to break it, then plant, I did that with a black boy peach , and had fruit in the 3rd year.
Do it now while the stone is fresh, and plant it in a pocket of sand so that it has loose growing ground around it,
Keep it moist, but not wet.
Good luck. Plant a number of stones as you can transplant them to where you want the tree to grow.
coop19, Mar 9, 1:44am
In the case of my G/Queens they can fruit in 3 yrs with if your lucky a dozen or two fruit, but take about 5 or 6 before the crop is worthwhile. Then they crop heavily from then on. Blackboy is another peach which throws true from a stone. I used to grow them up north but the ones I see now do not seem as good.
may321, Mar 9, 2:28am
Thanks everyone for your input. i will plant the stones and wait patiently for them to grow. lol.
oh_hunnihunni, Mar 9, 6:16am
Good luck. my flatto peach stone grown tree is doing very nicely, so you never know!
jan2242, Mar 9, 9:41pm
My tree this year was so laden the branches were on the ground. This is a self seeded peach and in it's 4th year.Been fruiting since it was '2'
oh_hunnihunni, Mar 10, 2:49am
My flatto is three years old and this year her growth has been spectacular. I'm starting to hope for the odd flower come spring - even though I know I'm being a tad optimistic. My quince though is the same age and twice the size, but I suspect much further off the fruiting thing.

Fun though - free trees!
skyblue17, Mar 10, 3:31am
What variety Jan.? You must be pleased.
skin1235, Mar 10, 8:43am
you will have plenty of flowers this next spring, just look after the trees well ( as you obviously have been doing )

pea slug is a problem to most quince trees, can make them look quite mank,and doesn't help the fruit much either, sprays keep them at bay

did you know that most commercial orchards plant a quince tree every tenth tree in their rows of pears
acts as a very reliable pollinator for the pears

then then let the quinces fall as there is little market for them
skin1235, Mar 10, 8:48am
says skin as he sits here digesting a huge bowl of freshly cooked quince topped with hokey pokey ice cream

theres buckets of the damn things under the tree

and a wee story

My dad have several quince trees as a hedge around the orchard
obviously we could not utilise all the fruit so as the season progressed windfalls that were not used were put in an old cream can
one day the pigs knocked the cream can over
for 3 days we had drunken pigs screaming around the orchard bashing into trees
these pigs were our handreared pets, I felt so sorry for them but could not help but laugh too
irenew, Apr 19, 5:28am
We have a similar situation with our tree this year, that was grown from a small cutting planted only about 3-4 years ago. The branches are nearly touching the ground. I'm wondering how to prune or train it to avoid this happening next year.