Fruit trees in Santa Fe

Santa Fe is high and sunny, which makes for a pleasant four season environment, but causes problems for fruit trees. The intense sunlight can trick the trees into blooming much too early. Then a cold snap or snow is bound to come along and kill the poor innocent little blossoms, leaving us with no fruit! This picture was taken on April 2, and the apricot , always adventurous, is already starting to burst into bloom.

Here is the grand old apricot at LQ, a week later, in full, glorious bloom.

That same year, at TP, the apricot in front of our house has already had its blossoms blasted by freezing night time temperatures. But as long as some buds don't open until after a killing frost, there is still a chance for fruit. The blooms which are turning brown had frozen, but new ones open each day. Hope springs eternal!

But that night it snowed, and the blooms were burdened with an inch of snow the next morning. No fruit again!

Two days later we got yet another snowfall. Don't get me wrong; I love spring snows...we always need the moisture! But we've yet to pick a single apricot from this tree, and it's 11 years old! The problem is the placement. It is on a south-facing slope. This means it gets a lot of direct winter sunshine, and blooms earlier than it should. Best to place early bloomers on a north-facing slope or on the north side of a building to avoid this problem.

And here is another beautiful show on April 16th of crabapple blossoms. Some trees seem more tolerant of cold than others. We always get crabapples!