I think you've let the people who bash Stark to promote their favorite mail order company to get into your head and convince you that you did wrong. Stark is a perfectly reputable company. You letting them getting into your head is keeping you from being clear. First it's budding from the bud union, now it has buds close to the bud union on up. You paid for pruning but call that pruning you paid for "no branches to speak of". Is the tree even growing yet? If not, stop worrying about it. If it sends out a branch, not leaves, in a place you don't want a branch you can either rub it off before it gets big or you can let it go and prune it when it's dormant. But if you wrap it those buds will probably stay dormant because they won't get light. If it should happen to do anything FROM the graft union or BELOW remove it. The only way you're getting a cherry bush is if you train it to be a cherry bush.

We do thousands of custom grafts a year - I'd be happy to graft the tree for you if you'd pay for shipping and rootstock. We buy the rootstock in massive shipments so its usually about $1 to $1.50 each. This year we are ordering in M111 but we do have a small amount of M7 avaiable. The M111 will produce a tree about 15 to 18 foot tall while the M7 would be more like 12 to 15 foot tall. The benchgrafts would be shipped for about $10 - so if you wanted 4 trees $16 should do it worst case. We would need several cuttings from last years growth - preferably about pencil size. My orchard phone is 9138936050 - wagonwheelorchard - Thanks, Rick

My Sunset book (of course it is older) says zone 11. But what I have read online says that where I live has been confused and we have elements of zone 10, 11, and 12 soooo........ Anyway, yes I can go buy way overpriced pots that are huge and repot them to stay. However, as you know I havent had good experience with plants in pots this summer here (other than a few, including these trees) and I am concerned that eventually the pots will kill them here and I dont know how large of a root system they will eventually get. I do have an area that has an aluminum shade permanent covering that is about 12' x 10' which I was thinking about putting in benchs and making a conversation area with plants and stuff. This particular area has an especially good view of our breath taking sunsets. But it is South, SW and West exposure. The wind here comes mostly from the SW or the North. This area is well protected by the house from the North wind. There are a couple of large Creosote Bushes and 1 very large Texas Ranger that offers some protection from the west in this spot. I was wanting to plant something to protect this area more from the wind to the SW. I have lots of ideas, including planting an oak tree further away from this area etc. But could I plant these trees under the cover in the south end? Would that give them enough heat and protection to get them through the winter? I have an electrical outlet close by there and it would not be any trouble at all (in fact it would be desirable) to string Cmas lights on them.......

Either squirrels or-,most likely at that size- the tree aborted the small fruits. Avocado's from my experience wont hold fruit until the are at least 6-8' tall. Grafting makes them bloom very young..and every single flower will fall off and any fruit that do get to some size also. The tree's seem to know that they need to have some branch diameter and roots and enough foliage to support the heavy fruits.