The secret to success in growing fruit in your garden is to choose your varieties carefully. That might mean being sure you have suitable varieties for cross-pollination, but that doesn’t apply to peaches, because they are self-fertile. What does matter is spreading out your crop, so that you have fresh fruit for the maximum time. Peaches don’t last or store very well, so the answer is to grow varieties that ripen at different times. July is the big month for peaches, with the majority of varieties ripening then. So it makes sense to have both earlier and later varieties as well in your garden. For a fantastic late variety that will be ready to harvest in August, we can’t recommend enough the Blaze Prince Peach Tree. This wonderful yellow-fleshed peach is delicious and the freestone makes it easy to eat and slice for salads or pies. The skin is a beautiful scarlet red when ripe, so it looks so appetizing, just begging to be eaten. Go ahead – bite in and enjoy. It’s never too late in the summer to eat a ripe peach straight from the tree.

Growing the Blaze Prince Peach Tree

Size and Appearance

The Blaze Prince Peach Tree is a robust tree growing to 15 feet tall and wide, although that can be modified by pruning and growing techniques. The long oval leaves have a softly serrated edge and a pointed tip, and they are about 6 inches long. In April the bare branches are covered in pretty pink flowers – beautiful in themselves, and a promise of things to come. This variety is completely self-pollinating, so you don’t need a second peach tree to grow a full crop. Shortly after the petals drop from the flowers the leaves emerge, and you won’t see much for a while. Then you will start to find clusters of little green peaches growing, getting larger every day. By July they will be big, but with a pale orange-yellow skin. Then that skin begins to turn scarlet red, until almost all the fruit is glowing – the time has almost come. In the second week of August press a fruit gently. If it yields to your touch a little, it’s harvest time.

The fruit has bright yellow flesh and it is full of that rich, delicious peach flavor that only tree-ripened fruit can offer. The red tones in the skin tint the outer flesh with red too, in a most beautiful way. This is a freestone variety, so the flesh comes away easily from the stone without any mess. Experts describe a variety like this as having a ‘melting texture’ – it literally melts in your mouth, without any fibers, like a bite of sweet butter. A low acid variety, although still with some pleasant tang, children love the superb sweetness as the juice runs down their chins. Yes, this is also an incredibly juicy variety, literally bursting with it.

Using the Blaze Prince Peach Tree in Your Garden

Whether you grow this tree on a sunny lawn in your garden, or develop a dedicated area for fruit trees is up to you, and how large your property is. Peach trees are among the prettiest of fruit trees, so don’t be afraid to plant it in your flower garden. In cooler zones peaches are excellent for growing on a sunny wall, spreading them out in the style called ‘espalier’. They take up almost no room and they crop well and ripen well too – you don’t need to live in the South to grow your own peaches.

Hardiness

The Blaze Prince Peach Tree needs 850 chilling hours over the winter, which means it is ideal for cooler zones like zone 4 – it is professionally recommended for New Jersey gardeners – and all the way into zone 7. In cooler areas it is ideal for growing as an espalier on a south-facing wall, where a good crop is much more likely. For warmer zones we recommend varieties like Snowbrite, with low chilling requirements. Check our current selection.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

Peaches love the sun – it makes them bloom and it ripens the fruit – so plant your Blaze Prince Peach Tree in a sheltered, sunny place. Well-drained soil is important, and peach trees prefer lighter loams and sandy-loams. If your soil is clay, try to plant in a high spot, like the top of a slope or on a mound of earth, and add plenty of coarse organic material when planting.

Maintenance and Pruning

The Blaze Prince Peach Tree has good resistance to bacterial spot – a serious disease of peaches that damages leaves and fruit. So extensive disease control is not needed. Some pests may need spraying – we recommend natural methods like neem oil spray and soap sprays. Your goal in pruning is to develop an open bowl-shaped or vase-shaped tree, with no branches in the center, so that the sun penetrated all through the tree. When young fruits are the size of a quarter, remove all but one from each cluster. This gives you full-sized peaches with plenty of flesh. Leaving every fruit will mean small fruit that is mostly stone.

History and Origin of the Blaze Prince Peach Tree

The peach tree, Prunus persica, grew wild on the hills of northwestern China, until people began to cultivate it centuries ago. It travelled the Silk Road to Europe, and from there to America, where early settlers in the South and in California found it grew wonderfully for them. The variety ‘Blaze Prince’ goes way back to those early days, with a possible introduction date of 1876, but that is all we know.

Buying the Blaze Prince Peach Tree at the Tree Center

Classic varieties like the Blaze Prince Peach Tree are still with us for a good reason – they are great, trouble-free plants that really deliver. This popular variety is always in high demand, so order your trees now, while our limited stock remains available.