As my cherries have now been in the ground for almost 2 years, I can now comment about the effect lack of chill has. The effect appears to be much more pronounced on all the cherries that receive full sun exposure. It is now July, and the leaf size of most of the cherries is small to undersized, and not all sections of the tree have leaves. The leaves are primarily on the tips of the branches, or on some of the trees near the base, closer to the ground. I suspect this is due to lack of vigor, but it seems even after several months the leaf growth has not been able to catch up. It is as if the growth just sort of stalled, and now the growth is very slow. I suspect there may be a feedback cycle, and because of the inadequate chill the plant has not been able to come totally out of dormancy, in terms of circulating hormone levels in the plant. Interestingly the Bing cherry seems to be growing much more vigorously than the others. It is full of leaves, and the leaves are big and full-sized. All this is in the lower part of the tree though; the top branch is a little sparse of leaves, and there are only a few little leaves coming out of the top tip. I am thinking this may be because the top gets more sun exposure. Interesting that the Bing appears to be growing more vigorously than the Royal Lee cherries. But one possible factor, it is one year older than the Royal Lee trees, so that may have given it a little more time to become established. The cherries with partial shade appear to be doing better than the ones in full sun, and also flowered and leafed out earlier. The full-sized kwanzan (flowering) cherry that I planted in January last year appears to have very sparse leaf coverage, and very small leaves. It is obvious it did not get adequate chill (despite this past winter being colder than usual). I would have thought that by July its leaf growth might have been able to catch up, but that is not the case. Both the kwanzan seedlings have survived. One has 2 medium sized leaves on it and 2 tiny leaves; the other has many small leaves on it now, and has sent up a tiny little new branch (more like just a stem) from the top. I have been making sure they receive water and that the soil does not get too dry. The little Yoshino seedling appears to be doing about as well as the kwanzan. Growth on all the cherries appears to be very slow (though the Bing has put out some new branches). The Blenheim apricot has done well; there were even 11 fruits on the tree this year, though they were a little small and a few of them were undersized or fell off the tree before halfway before ripening. Pretty good considering that Blenheim is not really a "low chill" variety (supposedly requires 400 chill hours). Some fruits may be more "adaptable" than other fruits, though.

I'm close to the same area. Generally only two kinds of apricots are sold in the southern part of the state: Blenheim (also called 'Royal Apricot') and Goldkist. (Katy is another ultra-low chill variety that has recently started becoming available) Blenheim is by far the popular commercial variety in California, but it is not truly a low-chill variety. It might be able to do okay in Santa Cruz but south of that it is not going to be able to produce fruit consistently, not unless it is up at a higher elevation that gets more winter chill. I have heard of people in certain parts of Orange County being able to get somewhat satisfactory crops from Blenheim, but in San Diego you would be out of luck! Maybe in Vista. So my guess would be that your "high-chill" apricots that were planted are probably Blenheim. Blenheim is more of a 'low to medium' chill apricot. It grows best with 400 chill hours, can produce with less under ideal conditions, if there are no warm winter days, and at 200 chill hours it will have substantially diminished fruit yield and might only produce fruit every other year. I'm almost sure your apricots are Blenheim, Blenheim was the popular apricot variety in Southern California, it was just never ideally adapted to the climate, and certainly not all the way down south in San Diego.

This spur type Cortland has seen very little pruning in its 20 years, other than making it an espalier of course. The major pruning it had was because of my neglect. The pruning it got this year was the 6 or so branches you see, it won't put out more vigorous growth until next year. I don't recall doing any pruning to it last year but it could've been something equally unmemorable. The strings also haven't done any supporting for many years so I trust the roots would hold. The non-spur type McIntosh next to it does tend to overgrow but it didn't start that up until it quit bearing close to the scaffolds. I'm working on trying to get it to produce more spurs in closer. But even with it overgrowing the espalier size it is not over "dwarf" size, the espalier size is half that. And so you can get an idea of the structure of the trees, Here's a link that explains my McIntosh, "By cultivar, McIntosh trees continue to be the largest," I guess that seals it, I'll eventually attempt grafting something else to that one. It also has results from a lot of different combos. I think it was a NZ study where I saw mention of different lengths of interstems. Here is a link that might be useful: Iowa State interstem study PDF

fruitgirl, Thank you for the link. That's a really good one, and I've bookmarked it. farmerdilla, The reason I was concerned about low chill fruit trees is because I had seen so many of them requiring 1000-1200 chill hours, and I know we don't get that much. I checked the weather for the last 10 years. This area used to get that many chill hours, but not for quite a while. However, that nursery has good recommendations and explains the cultivars very well for the south. Thank you for the link. I've bookmarked that one, too. I want to get several fruit trees and some blueberry plants next Spring. The previous owner planted two bearing peaches and two flowering peaches. We are going to remove the flowering ones. What are they good for, anyway? Removal of two additional ugly bushes will leave room for about six trees. Thank you both for the advice on the trees and the low chill question. I really appreciate the response. Karen