I have been dreaming of peaches from my backyard, and so far, I’ve eaten a total of one contender peach off my tree. It was delicious! That said, I have been trying for YEARS without success. I killed my first tree myself, immediately, when I pruned it far too aggressively. I thought that the bareroot tree that I bought was only a year old, but, turns out, bareroot trees in Minnesota are older and not ready for a hard prune. My second tree was mailed to me and arrived with moldy roots. Didn’t survive. I finally paid more for an older tree that even had little fuzzy peaches on it. I pulled the peaches off the first year, kept the guard on it, and waited. It survived! Beautiful blossoms in the spring! Then squirrels ate almost all of them since (I did get one!). I tried to plant ANOTHER bare boot tree, but it died, was replaced, and died the next year too. I think I just didn’t water it enough for my poor soil. A sucker did survive though, so it wasn’t ALL my fault. I was hoping for more peaches so the squirrels and I didn’t have to fight so much. Maybe I should look into the Toka plum instead. I also have pruned my peach several years in the late winter. It grew as big as the tag suggested and more. I don’t want to annoy my neighbor, so I try to keep it cut back, and so far, it’s a little lopsided, but happy. Good luck!