Is my Apricot Tree dead or whats wrong with it? :(

[MarkHackwell]

My Apricot tree I brought last year appears to not have any leaves and have now noticed spots with a sap like substance on the bark :/ Could someone say if they think its dead and whats wrong please?

[zazen999]

Is it budding up at all?

[MarkHackwell]

Is it budding up at all?

Nope :/ no leaves or buds or any sign of any life :/ I saw green bark the other week and thought thats good then no life

[chris]

Scratch the bark - is the cambiun layer green underneath? If so, it's alive.. If not, nope - and if so, scratch further down to see if it's still living lower down.

[orangepippin]

If there are no leaves or shoots by now then something has gone wrong. What rootstock is it grafted on? The pot looks rather small, and perhaps if the compost dried out last summer it could have caused some issues.

[BUFFS]

as orangepippin said,that pot looks small,i have mine in a half dustbin and consider that marginal,i would hold off doing anything yet as although my peach is growing ,my cherry tree has only shown the first signs of life this week,this time last year the flowers were in full bloom or just over,i hope it works out for you.....

[rustylady]

The pot is far too small for the tree, and it looks like you've potted it in multipurpose compost.

It's either dried right out, or the frost has killed the roots.

[FB.]

if the compost dried out last summer it could have caused some issues.

Compost and potted plants are a nuisance. The compost quickly dries out and is very difficult to rehydrate because after it has shrunk the water runs straight through and out the bottom; it takes a couple of light waterings per day, for several consecutive days, to rehydrate compost.
Potted plants also aren't able to explore the surrounding soil for water and nutrients, so they easily become starved, dehydrated and generally sickly.

In recent days I've had to begin watering some of our (fairly drought-tolerant) garden plants because they're wilting in the warm, dry, sunny weather we've had recently. Even the lawn is beginning to turn yellow-brown and crispy. My wife's container plants nearly died; last year no watering was required because it was so wet and cool so we got out of the habit of checking!

[Nicos]

What's that orange stuff on the bark...is it jelly like?

[FB.]

It's either dried right out, or the frost has killed the roots.

I've been trialling some of the primocane blackberries (Reubens) and the cold winter seems to have killed them all. Reubens are apparently a raspberry-blackberry hybrid but clearly lack the cold-hardiness of either of their ancestors. My raspberries and blackberries appear to be fine and have several inches of new growth now (Bedford Giant, Oregon Thornless, Loch Ness, Autumn Bliss, Allgold, Polka).
None of my fruit trees suffered any noticeable frost damage; no shoot die-back.

[FB.]

frost has killed the roots.

The roots of potted plants do tend to suffer more frost damage because the pot has more contact with the outside air, therefore the pot sees greater changes in temperature - a string of mild winter days can cause the roots to start growing because the pot warms up so quickly - but these soft roots will quickly die if the pot freezes again. There's only so many times that a plant can try to grow roots before its resources are all spent and it dies.

I thought apricots and peaches were usually grafted onto plum/almond rootstocks such as Pixy or St.Julien A. I didn't think they were frost-tender but maybe Orangepippin can comment on the hardiness of the rootstocks and the scions.

One final thought: perhaps it died from leaf-curl.

[veggiechicken]

My Apricot "Tomcot" on Montclare rootstock planted in January has just started to leaf up.

[BUFFS]

My Apricot "Tomcot" on Montclare rootstock planted in January has just started to leaf up.
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it looks like you are about a week ahead of us with your leaf growth,i expect thats as we are that much further north,we can just about see the embrionic peaches starting to swell so fingers crossed..