Fruitnut, I have 2 methods and I'm sharing my trade secrets here (what the hell- I'm 6 months from 60 and hope to retire in 25 years anyway). I start some plants straight in the ground, planting them way too close in a fenced off area. Planting them close makes maintenance per plant much less expensive given that it's all done by hand (don't ask). For apples in my climate it takes about 3 years to size them up to about 1.5" diameter- at least when planted this close. I carefully dig up these BR and put them in short 20 gallon pots (wide and shallow) in a mix of 1 part peat, 1 composted wood chips or stable waste ( almost pure humus with some carbo lumps) and 1 sand, plus a little wood ash. They limp the first season but I sell them the next for around $180 per. At this point they are bearing, 12' tall and well branched and the foliage is back to mormal. Other trees I transfer to Carl Whitcomb grow bags in real soil and let them grow about another 3 years and sell them for $250 per, or less to contractors. The grow bags I use are his last edition because they allow more root out of the bag and I can grow them without any irrigation at all- even through drought. Irrigation would reduce production by about a year, I'm sure, but in my operation only my potted plants get any and they are set in the soil as well. I always take some trees in the grow bags, remove the bags and put them into 25 Gallon pots with the soil intact but surrounded by my potting mix which allows me to sell some larger trees during the growing season. Surprisingly the soil surrounded by potting mix works very well and you might want to try that method for your trees as the soil gives you much more bang per square inch and costs less. Repotting would require only replacing the artificial soil on the edge of the soil ball. It makes things real heavy though, and my soil is not too fine so I don't know how it would work with a more clay soil but I bet it would work just fine. I'm sure my prices seem outrageous by your regional standards but I'm less than an hour from NYC and here it's more than competitive- it's the best deal around- because I have scores of varieties and they're actually properly shaped for fruit production. They also plug in better than the competitions BB'd trees, especially the ones I have in pots.

Generally the rootstock does not greatly affect the fruit size. It can make a small difference. Some growers don't like using OhxF333 pear rootstock for some pear varieties due to smaller fruit. It was never a big enough difference for me to notice. Most commercial apple orchards planted today are on dwarf stock; given the importance of large fruit in the market I'm sure those stocks don't make the fruit any smaller, otherwise they would not be used. Scott

hey, thanks for the tips! I haven't posted much but have been reading the forum off and on for a long time. I've been gardening my patch of ROCKY (thus the rock farmer comment lol) southern Maine coast for 20+ years and have probably one of everything that's very common in my mixed borders of perennials/shrubs/conifers. I garden with a pickax, if that tells you anything. But I really wanted to up the ante on my small evergreen patches and get some nice minis or dwarves that are not quite as common. good point on the arboretums, and I love those. it seems like unless I go to a Japanese garden specifically, the specimens are all so big! I wanted to focus on smaller plants. Still love looking at those beautiful big majestic giants, though! right now, specifically, I wanted to see (then hopefully buy) something small (~2-3 ft), yellow, and upright - either pyramid, globe, or columnar for a spot between a bobo hydrangea (small, white blooming) and my blue forest juniper. bright part shade. yes, zone 5 covers so much doesn't it! I have long cold winters, but being close to the ocean, I have a bit of that coastal microclimate - warmer in winter, cooler in summer. plenty of rain, generally, but also great drainage (thanks to the ROCKS again). thanks again for the local source (and arboretum) tips!

I have found Logees citrus to be disappointing. They appear to be cutting grown. They are structurally awkward, since it seems they strike two cuttings together in the same cell; then if they both root, they just leave them together there, crossing branches and all. Some have just failed to thrive. Try Brite Leaf. They grow a wide variety of grafted trees on semi-dwarfing rootstock. Fabulous trees. They only difficulty with their trees, and it is my problem, not really theirs, is that they send trees in 4" x 14" liners with really dense, strong root systems. So you have a 14" tall rootball that is 4" wide. I have left the height alone and potted them up into 12" clay pots, but this seems to be over-potting. More recently I tried loosening up the rootballs and getting the trees into a smaller (shorter) 10" pot. This works better, but done properly, with minimal root damage, this is a lot of work. Hope this helps. SB Here is a link that might be useful: Brite Leaf on GWD