I am glad your tree has blossomed. I grew up near Moorpark, CA where the former Williams Ranch hosted acres and acres of Moorpark Apricot trees. That is long since gone and now filled with thousands of homes ironically called "Peach Hill" (I never could figure that out). When I was 5 years old I went to the Williams Ranch with my family to pick apricots. They were so juicy, big and sweet. I liked them so much my Mom let me plant a seed in the back yard planter (loaded with planter mix). No special preparation! About a year later it was about a foot tall. My Dad transplanted it and staked it up. We made a big berm and filled it up with water and then let a soaker hose sit there overnight on slow drip. It took 5 years for the tree to bear fruit but it was WORTH the wait. It didn't produce every year but rather about every other year. There were no other trees around it. I am sure that had something to do with it's pollination. We had that tree from 1961 to 1978 until they widened the city road and a fire engine sideswiped it!!! DONE! The damage was too traumatic and it was chopped down. We are left with many years of good memories and great fruit. The tree was a fantastic shade tree and beautiful piece of natures work. We had many family events around that old tree. I am now 55 years old and going to start growing a couple of apricot trees for future generations. Thanks for the great posts and memories!

Anatoli, I use sulphur on my apricots even though you are not supposed to. Its interesting that this idea of not using sulphur on cots didn't make it down under, in Australia they spray sulphur on cots. So, I am somewhat doubtful if there is a reason for this restriction, or maybe only a few varieties are sensitive (I never noticed any sensitivity on my several dozen varieties). Anyway its your call on it in the end. I have also used Serenade but I don't think it works as well as sulphur. Sulphur is a good organic spray for brown rot but needs many applications. If you are using synthetics try Monterey Fungi Fighter, it should zap any brown rot and it is one of the less toxic synthetic sprays. For the worms you need to use Surround clay to keep off the curculio, as soon as the fruits are bare (the shucks - flower remnants - have fallen off), or use pyrethrin spray. I don't like pyrethrin since it is a poison, Surround is non-toxic clay. You also need something to protect against moths, oriental fruit moth in particular. Either Surround or pyrethrin will do that. You need to protect against the curc until the cots are nickel sized and from dime sized to maturity you need to protect against the fruit moth. Scott

As you're in MA, sounds like Winter Moth, which has become a major pest in the last few years. The worst part of them as a pest is that they seem to prefer flower buds, so they can really decimate a crop. http://www.umassgreeninfo.org/fact_sheets/defoliators/wm_id_man.html This is the first time I've been fairly aggressive with them and it's been working pretty well. A couple sprays with BT early on helped keep the population down and as soon as petal fall occurred, a follow-up with Triazacide and another 7 days later seems to have done the trick. Dormant spray isn't very effective as you noticed the threads. When they hatch, if they don't find any food on their host trees, they spin a thread and ride the wind until they do. I had a lot of trouble getting some new cherry trees established last year because of this. They seem particularly fond of apples, plums, tart cherries, blueberries and pears. Sweet cherries they don't seem to like as much and they haven't bothered my peaches, hardy kiwi, figs, raspberries or paw paw.

I would guess that some sort of weather disturbance (high wind gusts, hail, heavy rain, cold temps., etc.) knocked off the blooms but that all the blooms had not yet opened, so when the weather returned to more normal conditions, the remaining blooms opened, but that is just a guess. So far, it has not gotten cold enough long enough here for the plums and peaches to abort their fruit, so I am starting to think we might get some fruit this year after all. Of course, it is still very early in the season, so there's still the chance that high winds or hail will knock the fruit off the trees before they can mature. I hope your second round of blooms give you apricots! The only time I've seen fruit trees bloom twice in one year is when exceptional drought conditions cause them to go dormant and begin dropping their leaves in the summer. Then, when you water heavily or rain falls and they come out of the "false" dormancy, they often put out a second wave of blossoms. Since the blooms are occurring in summer or fall, though, you don't get fruit from them. Dawn