"Feathers are the small branches with wide crotch angles on the nursery stock at planting. You need a nursery tree with 10-12 feathers at planting. At least if you want the early production needed for early payback. Hangers and risers are branches hanging down or growing up from a scafold. At least that's my understanding." Just as our fruitnut said. 'nut, a tree that is ten feet across, or even eight feet across is not that narrow. At least not to me. And yes, when you remove a scaffold you cut it back to a one or two inch stub so that it will send out a new shoot that will become a scaffold. Scaffolds come off the CL at a hoped for right angle. Leaving that stub is the hardest thing for a pruner to do. They all want to cut it off entirely. Even after doing it for a day or two they will revert. You want all of these scaffolds as they are not long and the ones in the top are short, maybe not more than a foot long. So not much shade. I do almost no pruning until the tree starts to bear. But some tying down would be good. glib, I grow Gingergold, Pinklady, Rome. This method is not used on the Rome. Actually all three of those are tip bearers and I prefer plain CL on them. I did grow Fuji using this method and have since 1982 or 85? Just pulling out the last of the Fuji. I have always called this method the French Axe. It works very well on Gala or Golden or Jonagold or anything that isn't an extreme tip bearer. IMHO I don't have curculio or maggot. Or chickens for that matter. Reading these posts I know that my growing conditions are much easier than those of you who grow back east. I do have neighbors, however.

the guide the local orchard gave me was specific to prune during the first year. this is why I did this. there was specific directions on what to do when, but I didn't do it when I first planted and now I'm not sure if I need to chop the header or what. All I know is that it isn't growing new branches like the other trees are.

Have you ever seen the big tall poles with a propellor on them. They produce energy and for most people who put them in they produce more energy then they use and they start getting a check from the electic company instead of a bill. Problem is for most people the amountof money they are saving is not even close to the cost of the generator. (Est. $10-20,000_ With a bill of $500 dollars a month it would pay for itself in four years and then your electric is essentially free. I don't know about electric heat, but I would imagine you may still need more power than a single wind generator can produce. If you plan on staying in your house for a while it may be a worth while investment. In my case (or my fathers case) it would take too many years for the generator to pay for itself than is worth while for us and we don't have that kind of money upfront. It is easier to pay for the electric bill each month which is a smaller cost than the wind generator even though the long term costs are higher.

Thanks for the help. The photo is from my phone camera, so it is not the best. But you can clearly see the lighter, brighter green new leaves (third rhizome from the right) which unfurled from their sheath just in the past 48 hours!!! No kidding. Before that, it looked like the "sheathed" growth of an unopened rubber-tree plant leaf. This is in addition to the other new shoots that have appeared since I got the plant on May 11. This rapid growth ASTONISHED me, as on-line research kept referring to ZZ plants as "very slow growers." (I am joking with my friends that my ZZ plant somehow aspires to be an oak tree, or that atheletes must be sneaking into my home when I am at work and dumping performance enhancing drugs into its pot. LOL.) I watered it on the 18th and watered it again last night, June 1, and am sticking with watering every 2 weeks Should I water more often? The current pot is about 10 inches across. Last night I purchased one that is about twice that size (the largest one I could find with drainage holes) and will re-pot the plant tonight.