Got this sickly looking peach tree in the end of May. After about a month I started seeing red/black spots on the leaves and it looked like something what eating them. Did some research and started spraying it with neem oil. The spots stopped happening on newer hight leaves, as well as the bite marks. Now all the leaves are falling off and it looks like this. Is it dead? Does it have any hope? What can I do to put it on life support and make it through the winter?
It may just be losing it’s leaves early because of stress. It’s not necessarily a death sentence though. There’s not much you can do though winter, just let it be dormant. In early spring / late winter, just before bud break, I’d recommend spraying at least once with a fungicide dormant oil such as copper sulfate. This will combat leaf curl, which would weaken the tree further. Follow the application instructions and peach leaf curl is pretty easy to mitigate or prevent entirely.
Also give it some fertilizer in spring so it can put on lots of new growth.
That’s incredibly relieving. Thank you for the info. I thought I had gotten to it too late. I’m also worried about needing to cover it for the winter as well, don’t know if it will get cold enough to harm it here.
What zone do you live in? Or in other words what are your coldest lows in a typical season? Dormant peach trees can easily withstand temperatures a bit below 0F, and some can go even lower. If your temps don’t get colder than that, then it’s evolved to deal with the winter just fine out in the open.
USDA says I live in zone 7b, which says 5-10 F, but I have lived here my whole life and I can count on one hand the amount of times it’s gotten under 20F. Thank you again.