It sounds like a peach rootstock. I have a peach tree which turns out to be rootstock and it is producing these small green fruits. Mine are just ripening now. They are perfectly edible but a bit bitter. You are pretty cold for peaches and the bloom could have been frozen out for many years. The wood itself is more hardy than the buds. Peach rootstock is often used on apricots. I don't know how hardy it is as roots but my guess is that Gurneys never really sat down and thought about what that peach rootstock could be doing as far as overall hardiness goes, they just ordered some apricot trees from someone and copied the hardiness on the variety from someone else.

Scott

Beeone:

I fully agree with what Scott has said, and if you have something you would prefer to put in that spot would take the tree out.

In order to be sure of rootstock type and its hardiness value, you have to order from a professional nursery that understands rootstock differences, keeps meticulous track of the rootstocks on each group of trees, and is willing to share that information with you. There are only a few of those nurseries around. Most of the general merchandise nurseries like Gurney's purchase from contract growers, and have little idea themselves what they are selling. They restrict their descriptions to dwarf and semi-dwarf, and even that can turn out to be inaccurate.

I don't think there is any chance at all that the tree you describe will ever produce edible peaches. You are in a tough neighborhood for peaches anyway, and would have to find something pretty special to have a chance at ripening out peaches in the occasional year when the buds survive. Contender might work for you, or Reliance, and I understand there are now some newer bud-hardy peaches.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Thanks for the responses. At least this has helped solve what has become a very old mystery. I have been told many times that peaches won't grow here, so it was nice to have a tree even if it never bloomed. It was planted as an apricot to replace an apricot that had winter killed a few years before, although that older apricot root stock continued to sprout forth. After numerous abuses to try to kill the old apricot rootstock, including roundup, I finally left it when it didn't winterkill to the ground for a year or two. Now it is producing magnificent apricots--about 2" in diameter and very sweet, so the peach is the one with the short leash now and growing shorter by the day! I'll keep watching to see if these ever do ripen or if the frost takes them first.

On the brighter side, I planted a couple peaches last year in a higher location with better air drainage and both bloomed this year, a Reliance and an Intrepid. The Intrepid retained a peach through the summer which I picked shortly after Labor Day and it was quite good. Both trees have grown nicely through the summer, so hopefully they'll make it.