I pruned the baby Reliance peach tree on March 21, probably about one minute before it broke dormancy. I followed the instructions in this video, which said to select three to five scaffold branches. My tree had only three, and one huge sucker coming out of the base, which I removed.
I planted the peach tree last year (purchased as a whip from the Windham Country NRCD plant sale) on the eastern side of the house, where it shouldn’t break dormancy too early, and it’s sheltered from wind by the house and the steep hillside on the north.
I’m going to plant a guild around the peach. So far I have only comfrey, so I could add clover (for nitrogen and weed control), alliums (for attracting pollinating insects), and maybe some yarrow. This blog post has some great suggestions.
The Bee-Loud Glade 