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Florida Gardening

Royl Lee cherry

12 years ago

Hey yall, for the guys that have planted the bay laurel low chill cherries here in central florida, How are they doing? I just planted the royal lee, mini royal cherries on colt root stock. also Pettingill apple on m111 root stock, goldkist apricot on nemagaurd root stock and finally kayty apricot on citation root stock. Please let me know if anyone has tips on what to do or not to do with these trees. would love to hear from someone that is getting fruit off of these trees.

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Comments (3)

L_in_FL
12 years ago
I'd be interested in hearing as well. I just planted the Royal Lee & Minnie Royal trees up here. (Before someone tells me I'm stupid...I planted them knowing that they are an experiment. I know I may never see fruit because they may not tolerate the disease pressures in our humidity. But I think it's worth a try.)
happyballz
12 years ago
Didn't have them for a year yet but I planted 4 cherries as an experiment myself around a month ago. Royal lee and mini royal broke dormancy and pushing out leaves now. Stell & Lapins - just now starting to bud-out. All on the new dwarf rootstock 3CR178.

I contacted nursery and they said to hold-off on head-cutting/pruning them until summer because of diseases.
Also, was suggested to paint them top to bottom with 50% water/50% white latex paint to protect form the sun.

Hopefully it worksout for all of us lol.
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Zaiger was working with different cherry tree cultivars from Spain. It's quite possible—I would even say very likely—they could have used Cristobalina to breed Royal Lee. The descriptions of these cherries sound quite similar to each other in many respects, dark colored flesh, sweet, and good flavor. quote by goyo626: "I tried searching for cristobalina cherry patent info but nothing comes up. Can anyone direct me to the patent info on this variety. The only info I have found is that it is an old spanish variety. Thank you. " I feel reluctant to post this again, because I have already posted in several other places in this message board, but here it goes... There is a low chill Spanish heirloom variety cherry called Cristobalina. It is self-fertile and requires about 200 chill hours. Cristobalina has been grown for generations of cherry growers in Andalucia and Valencia, where winters are as mild as they are in Southern California, and reliably produces fruit despite lack of a cold winter. It is known to flower mid-February and produces dark purple, delicious sweet cherries. The only negative is that the fruit does not have as much edible flesh as other more popular cherry varieties, but thinning the tree can help lead to more full-sized fruit. Of course there would not be a patent on it, and this variety is not widely known in America.
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I picked up a nice 2yr old plum from the discount area at a big box store yesterday. It's tagged for retail as a generic red plum but also has a nursery tag that simply states "Red Lee Plum." There was a similar one marked "Yellow Lee Plum." All of my searches so far have only turned up Red Lee Cherry, no plum. This is my first plum tree. The tag says it requires no pollinator, but I thought all plums do? I've been looking at Chickasaw (they're native here) and Purple Leaf (for ornamental purposes, and I'm aware of their "problems") plums recently also and would like to know if either of these would be suitable as pollinators. Anyone know how I can figure out more details on this tree regarding ripening season, etc?
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Patty: I've heard that elsewhere. It's almost like a grape where a late crop can be forced by pruning. I know a guy in Indonesia that gets two crops a year of grapes by pruning soon after harvest. Guess I should get one of each and see if I could force two crops a year by pruning or stripping the leaves. It might take some experimentation to figure out the timing. But if they are blooming now it should be close. Are they blooming on the old wood? Don't see how they could bloom on newly forced wood like grapes do. If they are blooming on old wood are all the flower buds blooming or just some?
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L_in_FL
12 years ago
Mine are also on 3CR178 rootstock. They were planted mid-January and their first leaves are emerging now.

I painted mine, too, but the written instructions that came with my trees said to paint from just below the bottom branch to the ground, not all the way to the top. So that's what I did. Even the buds that are below the paint line are opening - the coating of paint isn't slowing them down at all.

My trees had already been head-cut so they would fit in the shipping box. I am not planning on doing any more pruning until next winter, except for rubbing off any buds that sprout too low to the ground.

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