Weeping Apricot in Summer

In response to a request I am posting a pic of my weeping apricot Prunus mume so you can see what it looks like in mid summer. In the pic you can see that the weeping 'wands' are about half way earthwards. They will hit the ground (some, not all) in another month or two. All our rain has not affected the tree which has reacted by putting on a lot of growth this season. Mind you its in a pretty good position where it receives all the run-off from the driveway so it has done well ever since we planted it nearly 19 years ago. I prune it hard every year in late winter so it has remained a compact weeping tree. If left unpruned it would tend to spread sidewards and eventually it would obstruct the paths on all three sides of its triangular bed. There is a specimen in a garden near here that although only 2m high is about 4-5m wide.

As I have said before, this is a very hardy deciduous tree that does not succumb to pear and cherry slug like many weeping cherries. It flowers with pale pink blossoms from June to September that stay on the tree for weeks, good green dense foliage through spring and summer and autumn foliage of yellow and orange. Sometimes a small number of bitter apricots are produced but they are useful only for pickling apparently.

The plant beneath the apricot is Erigeron 'Elsie'. It flowered profusely in spring but then did not take kindly to the excessive amounts of rain and is looking rather ill at the moment. However it is coming good and I expect it to make a full recovery.