apricot scionwood (prunus armeniaca)

a tree-ripened apricot is soft, intensely aromatic, sweet and juicy in a way that fruit picked for commercial shipping rarely gets the chance to become.

our scionwood collection currently focuses on two hardy selections particularly interesting for northern growers.

perfection — a very hardy and productive old apricot producing very large, oval orange fruit with good texture and flavor. the flesh becomes a rich yellow-orange to deep orange at maturity, and the fruit is notably sweet and juicy. ‘perfection’ is hardy into zone 4 but requires another compatible apricot for pollination.

chinese / mormon — one of the apricots we find most exciting for difficult northern climates. it is cold hardy, late blooming, self-fertile, early bearing and capable of producing heavy crops of sweet, flavorful yellow-orange fruit. its later bloom can help it escape the spring frosts that so often frustrate apricot growers. even the kernel is unusual: the pit contains a sweet edible seed traditionally eaten much like a nut.

growing apricots from scionwood

scionwood is dormant one-year wood used to reproduce a cultivar by grafting. a successful graft preserves the genetics of the parent tree, allowing a few inches of dormant wood to become an entire fruiting tree.

apricots can be grafted onto compatible apricot rootstocks and onto selected plum or peach rootstocks. rootstock choice matters: soil, climate and long-term graft compatibility should all be considered rather than assuming every prunus combination is interchangeable.

for northern growers, apricot culture is an especially interesting grafting project because winter hardiness is only half the problem. apricots flower notoriously early, and a perfectly healthy tree can lose its crop to a badly timed spring frost. cultivar choice, site selection, bloom time and local microclimate therefore matter enormously.

a north- or east-facing site that delays spring warming can sometimes be more useful than the warmest corner of the property. good air drainage and well-drained soil are equally valuable.

scionwood is shipped dormant and should be kept cool and moist until grafting. it is propagation material rather than a rooted plant, and successful grafting is ultimately in the hands of the grower.

for anyone interested in pushing high-quality tree fruit into colder climates, apricots are worth the experiment.