FLOWERING APRICOT TREES
for Extra-Early Spring Flowers
Prunus Mume, Japanese flowering apricot,
has been called a perfect small tree.� It
blooms in mid-winter or very early spring before the leaves appear.� The secret to its success are flowerbuds that
have staggered dormancy, so they bloom on developing buds even if a late freeze
kills already mature buds and blooms. ���
In reasonable seasons, this staggered dormancy
leads to a very long bloom time, from four to eight weeks when almost nothing
else is blooming.� The site of a blooming
tree in January is enough to set a gardener�s heart aflutter.
You can choose cultivars that bear pink flowers or
white flowers.� The flowers are often
fragrant.� Some cultivars suitable for
the small garden or even for growing in a container only get to 8 feet tall.
�Beni-chidori� (syn. �Benishidore�) and �Dawn� are two small bushy trees.� �Beni-chidori� has dark pink flowers.� Double ruffled pink flowers cover �Dawn� a
little later in the spring.
Growing to 20 feet, so still fittable into a small
garden, are �Peggy Clark� with double, rose-red flowers.� Then there is the earliest flowering apricot,
�Rosemary Clark,�.� She shows out in large,
double white flowers with red whorls of sepals underneath the flower.� �W.B. Clark� and �Pendula� both weep in pink
flowers.� W.B.�s flowers are double.�
Full sun in fertile, well-drained soil will keep
these trees healthy and happy for many seasons to come.� USDA Zones 6-9.
NOTE:� These
beautiful flowering apricots will bloom after the most unpredictable up and
down winters, but they will not do well in California�s Central Valley or
densely populated cities where smog is a problem.�
