How many 10-year-old boys ask for a tree for their birthday? Ours did — he loved the fresh peaches from our neighbor’s tree so much, he wanted to be able to harvest the fruit from our own yard.
How could we not oblige? And while that boy is coming up on his 18th birthday and the now-20-foot tree towers over his relatively tall 6-foot, 2-inch frame, he still enjoys its fruit each summer.
In exchange for a home in our landscape, the sapling we planted has provided our family with bountiful crops almost every year (more on this in a minute), and we’ve enjoyed Reece cobbler, Reece pie, and Reece preserves — peach delights aplenty, all named for the boy who asked for a sapling as a birthday gift.
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Read on if you’d like to surprise your child with a peach tree (aka Prunus persica) for a special occasion!
Growing RequirementsPeaches will grow in zones 4 to 9, but do particularly well in zones 6 and 7. Varietal selection is particularly zone-dependant, and we’ll explore this more later in the article.
These plants are self-pollinating, so while you may want to grow an orchard so that each of your children has his or her own tree, you don’t need more than one to get fruit.
The peach is a deciduous tree native to northwest China, and was brought to Florida by Spanish explorers in the 16th century.
The tree’s delicate blossoms are heralded for their beauty and is similar to those produced by other close relatives (all in the Prunus genus), the fruiting cherries, flowering cherries, plums, nectarines, and almonds.
The 1/2- to 1-inch flowers bloom in various shades of
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