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To be honest mysteries and guessing games kind of bug me, I'm a grumpy impatient sort and prefer lots more evidence and immediate conclusions whenever possible. One thing is for sure already though, you have a good eye for photography and you take really excellent, clear, well detailed pictures in good light so your photos are very helpful and the following request for more photos should be easy for you.
You're a very good Psychologist and know that flattery will get you what you're after.
Thank you. I'll give it a try.
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Those blossoms on the mystery tree appear as though they could be quite large (I'm comparing them with the size of the trunk near the ground and with the size of the bricks on that back wall). Could you please get out a measuring tape/ruler and take the exact measurements of the width across of a couple of the largest flowers on there, from petal tip to petal tip, and post a picture of a flower with the measure held up right next to the flower? Compare the mystery blossoms sizes with the sizes of those on the other two trees and post those other flowers sizes measurements too.
The petals are relatively large. They measured anywhere from 1 3/8" to 1 3/4" (see photos below)
This is the smaller flower
Comparing those with the other 2 fruit trees (Nectarine and Peach), here are the pics of the other two
Nectarine (sorry the flower is not in focus). They are between 1 3/4" and 2"
Another photo of Nectarine
Peach. You'll notice the Peach petal is noticeably smaller. They are between 1 1/8" and 1 1/4"
Another photo of Peach
So from these comparisons, I noticed the "mystery flower" petals are between a Peach and a Nectarine
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Also I notice there are a couple of new growth branches on the mystery tree that have fresh open leaves on them now but no flowers this year. I realize those leaves are still young and growing and haven't achieved their maximum size yet but could you post some close up photos of those leaves that are most open together with their current measurements in length and width?
The leaves of the Mystery tree
This is the best photo I can do from the back of the leaves. Hope it serves the purpose
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Also you need to do a visual comparison of the size and spacing of the teeth (serrations on the edges of the leaves), veins, ribs and shade of green on front and back side of those leaves compared with the same leaf features on the other two trees. They will not be the same and any really notable differences will be helpful.
I think the easiest way for me to do this is to sacrifice one stem of the Mystery tree leave and do a side-by-side comparison with the Peach and Nectarine.
Comparing leaves between the Peach and the Mystery tree
Comparing leaves between the Nectarine and the Mystery tree
I hope you can tell the different between the 3 leaves because I could not!
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Edited to add: I notice on the second picture showing the whole tree there are a couple of fresh open leaves lying on the ground near the trunk - are those 2 leaves from the mystery tree? If so, close-ups of those leaves would be helpful since they appear to be bigger and more matured than the leaves remaining on the tree.
No those 2 leaves are from a nearby Mexican Lime plant. I over-winter the potted plant indoor and just took it out. It drop about 1/3 of leaves because those grew indoors and not accustomed to the bright light outdoors so they turned white and I cut them off, or they voluntarily fell off on the ground.
Here's a pic of the Mexican Lime plant with a "burned leave" held in the foreground
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A closer up photo of the trunk and bark detail closer to the base at ground level would be helpful too for comparison with bark of other species, and it may also indicate where there might still be a graft visible.
This is the trunk of the Mystery tree
This is the trunk of the Peach tree
This is the trunk of the Nectarine tree
Bonus pic
As I was taking the above photos, a butterfly visited the Nectarine tree
Almond can have smaller pink flowers like that but it doesn't have leaves and bark like that. Same thing goes for apricot, cherry and plum, it isn't them either. They all have different bark, leaves and colours from each other, sometimes very subtle, but differences nonetheless.
HB2HSV - thanks for taking the time to post all those extra photos, you did a great job of that. I can see the differences in the patterns and colours of the leaves, bark and flowers of all those specimens and I'm still going with wit-nit on this that the mystery tree is a peach.
But it's a different kind of peach from the one beside it. The confirmed one beside it will likely have smaller peaches (based on smaller size of buds and opened flowers) and one of them will likely be a clingstone variety and the other will be a freestone variety. I guess we will all have to wait until you get some mature fruit harvested from them before we know for sure though.
Something to keep in mind is that if that had been a grafted tree before it was cut down to the roots then the new growth on it since you took on the property are sucker branches coming up from the old root-stock that was below the location of the original graft. So what you get there now will be a different tree from whatever had been grafted on above the old root-stock, it will be an old stock tree. And that's why the new growth on it now is so vigorous, so if you were to allow it, it would probably get a LOT bigger and exhibit more aggressive growth than the confirmed peach tree. If you control it and don't let it get too big it will produce a greater abundance of fruit than it would if you let it get really big.
Almond can have smaller pink flowers like that but it doesn't have leaves and bark like that. Same thing goes for apricot, cherry and plum, it isn't them either. They all have different bark, leaves and colours from each other, sometimes very subtle, but differences nonetheless.
HB2HSV - thanks for taking the time to post all those extra photos, you did a great job of that. I can see the differences in the patterns and colours of the leaves, bark and flowers of all those specimens and I'm still going with wit-nit on this that the mystery tree is a peach.
But it's a different kind of peach from the one beside it. The confirmed one beside it will likely have smaller peaches (based on smaller size of buds and opened flowers) and one of them will likely be a clingstone variety and the other will be a freestone variety. I guess we will all have to wait until you get some mature fruit harvested from them before we know for sure though.
Something to keep in mind is that if that had been a grafted tree before it was cut down to the roots then the new growth on it since you took on the property are sucker branches coming up from the old root-stock that was below the location of the original graft. So what you get there now will be a different tree from whatever had been grafted on above the old root-stock, it will be an old stock tree. And that's why the new growth on it now is so vigorous, so if you were to allow it, it would probably get a LOT bigger and exhibit more aggressive growth than the confirmed peach tree. If you control it and don't let it get too big it will produce a greater abundance of fruit than it would if you let it get really big.
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Thank you for your assessment Zoisite.
I look forward to the final verdict this summer! . Glad to hear if it's Peach it will be bigger than its neighbor. The neighbor one was already pretty big last summer. I had to find ways to stop squirrels and birds eating away all the peaches before I get to enjoy them. I managed to trap a family of squirrels and relocated them but still loss 25% to birds.
I will prune it to keep its size under control. Anything taller than I can reach will be donated to birds. When the neighbor Nectarine tree was 10 feet tall and formed a pyramid shape, I practically had a heart attack cutting the central trunk down by 50%. But as you can see, it was trained to an open-center shape very well.
Now, I thinking almond.
Someone earlier mentioned almond too.
This is fun!
It sure is .
I have a suspicion that it might be an Almond as well, the reason being last summer I compared its leaves with the neighbors and the leaves were slimmer than the Peach tree leaves.
When I lived in Alabama I spent several years looking for a Prunus Mume without success. The closest I got from a local nursery was a Taiwanese Cherry which I planted in my front yard as a specimens tree.
Almonds, peaches and nectarines are virtually identical in appearance. It's not just about the flowers, it's also about the color and texture of the bark and shape of the leaves. This is not a cherry or a plum or apricot, I promise you.
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