Hi Lisa, I actually recognized your name from a few years ago and found your old posts dealing with these trees: Peach tree issue and Peach Tree troubles I'm sorry you've been fighting this for so long and are still struggling with these trees. Scott and Hman have give you some sound advice. From your past threads, I think it's conclusive your trees have had issues with peach leaf curl. You mention last summer you still had to pull off "curled" leaves, so it sounds like you're still having issues with leaf curl. Because of this, I'm going to recommend a stronger product to you for leaf curl. It is available at garden centers and has the active ingredient "chlorothalonil". It is sold under names like Fungonil or Danconil. Like any leaf curl product, it must be applied after leaf drop in the fall, and/or before buds swell for it to work, which may mean its too late for you this spring. I applied my leaf curl sprays on a warm Feb. day this year. Oozing peaches are a result of some damage to the peach. Think of the ooze as the peach bleeding. It is the peach's way of protecting itself from injury. The blood/ooze bleeds out of the wound and hardens to form a sort of protective "scab". Anything can cause injury to the peach/fruitlet and cause bleeding. Most commonly it's a small worm. Sometimes the worm will crawl out of the peach, so that you don't see it when you open the peach. Some beetle type insects will also feed on the fruit. They have piercing mouthparts that suck the juice out of the peach. The site of feeding is an injury and can produce oozing. Any mechanical injury that breaks the skin of a peach (even a very minute break) can cause oozing. However, since it appears to affect most of the peaches in your case and you describe them as unattractive, it sounds a lot like insect damage which will require insecticide sprays to prevent this problem. I would also agree with Scott that you have some canker issues going on in the photos. The best antidote against canker is to promote healthy vigorous trees. Good drainage, a large weed free mulch ring around the trees, eliminating symptoms of leaf curl, and good pruning to promote new growth and open up the tree to sunlight are important. For peach trees grown outside in the soil, a good measure of the health of the tree is how much annual growth the tree puts on. Weak trees will have little new growth (red wood) and will have a significant amount of dead shoots. Healthy vigorous trees will easily have some shoots with 3' of growth or more (if left unpruned). Observe the growth from last season to assess the general vigor of your tree. Canker can continue to spread and eventually kill the tree, but good cultural practices will go a long way to halt or heal the damage. Of the ones mentioned, good drainage and a mulch ring are the most critical in my area. I'm not surprised you were able to harvest peaches effortlessly your first year. Insects, diseases and other pests sometimes take a few years to "show up" and when they do they don't want to leave the party.

haha, Mike it sounds just PERFECT for a break from my next door neighbor in the front as well...I doubt we could smell it where we are putting it ...we have a horrible situation...the previous owners planted 3 giant redwoods AND a plum tree...the majority of the yard is cement patio with a nice cover and fireplace. They painted the fence red and I NEED some green and privacy, noise barrier on the back fence..I hate looking from the window and patio seeing only RED...we had to remove one of the redwoods and plan on getting rid of the messy plum tree when something else is close to it's size. I want a pretty yard to look out on...with the wet clay here it's hard..this is mostly shade or WAS...now I am back to square one trying to figure out what I can have here...we moved from s. CA here last year and growing conditions were much different...we had great soil...plant water and poof, great plants..here it's jackhammer and hope you can dig into this cement soil here...it's awful...some neighbors gave up and just have everything in pots..but that's off my topic haha...

Here are my guesses. Listen and see if you agree. I don't know where you live so I don't know if you have these two birds. Tufted Titmouse sounds Carolina Wren sounds

Thanks buddy. Perhaps I should explain myself, lol! So, I'm a pro horticulturist in a medium-sized city not too far from Green Bay. One of my main areas of responsibility is designing, installing, and maintaining our community's ornamental display beds, planters, etc. I'm always on the lookout for an unusual plant which nevertheless would perform well for us, as an "annual". Our basic program is to create plans in November of the preceding year, put the plant needs out for bids at the local growers, and then whichever company gets our order, they grow the stuff for us and we plant out in late May, when most frost danger is past. So I'm never looking to carry stuff over the winter. That would be hugely cost-prohibitive. So let's say the Russelia could in fact work for us. What we would do would be to place an order for X amount of plants, along with all the other species and cultivars we'd be growing. Then, in late may, outplant and maintain for the summer. Some examples of some fairly unusual "tropical" items I've worked with in the past are: Mexican flame vines, popcorn cassia (getting pretty common now), Pride of Barbados (Caesalpinia), uh...I'm sure I'm forgetting some more. This in addition to all the usual stuff that is actually of tropical origin, but which has been used in the trade so much that nobody thinks of it that way anymore, like Impatiens, cannas, etc. What i would like to do with the Russelia is just try one in my own garden at home and see if I could get decent performance out of it. The key issue with all of this is: How fast do the plants bulk up and how long to go into flowering mode. Probably the best success story we've had so far is the popcorn cassia-Cassia didymobotrya. Those things come out of the greenhouse maybe a foot tall or so, go into bloom almost immediately, and remain in flower all summer long, until freezing weather finally gets them. That's the kind of performance we can use. If something takes forever to get into its most colorful mode, then it's just taking up space that would be better filled by something else. So yeah, why don't we plan on you sending me a test sprig. It's actually warming up nicely already here, but I'm sure we'll be cold again, so maybe another couple of months to play it safe. Thanks much!