kirsten- the 3 varieties on the asian pear are shinseiki, yongi and yakumo. if you can plant 2 then you better control the varieties and can pick for what you want as far as flavor & disease resistance. i've noticed on the combos they often use varieties you can't order separately, though i don't know why. i got it from one green world in 2004. i've had 2 years of crops. as far as brambles, i have lots of different ones, and i have about 10 varieties. i don't have enough of all kinds to share but can easily share about 5 kinds. if you decide you can come, once the preswap trades start rolling, post & we'll figure out what you want, or you can email me directly. up to you. the swaps are so much fun- if you can come, you should. dogridge- depends on what kind of cherry you have, and what kind of soil. they have to have great drainage or they get rots. i know of a few northstars that are growing well in the ground (sour types). some of the local nurseries sell compact stella, which i have, but mine's in a pot and i don't know anyone with a sweet in the ground in these parts. not that it can't be done. the sweets are not supposed to deal with our soil well- part of why i potted it. it's done ok, though i haven't had fruit from it yet. the northstar we have had fruit from; ours is potted as well. my whole issue is i'm borderline for sun on most everything, so i really have to maximize what i do have, hence the dwarfs. esp for cherries i felt being potted had another advantage in that they got more winter chilling. you do need an asian pear & persimmon! if you like these fruits i wouldn't think twice, honestly. the persimmon i have is ichi ji jiro which i got from ed landscaping. it's a dwarf and the fruit is great crunchy- no astringency at all. it took about 4 or 5 yrs to start bearing, but then that first year we got more than 30 fruits! they are palm sized and gorgeous like lanterns on the tree. the blooms are small and hardly noticeable, so it's a real treat when the fruit starts. the trees are very ornamental- they turn a glorious red orange in fall. the leaves are dark green, med big and glossy in the main season, and they don't seem to attract jap beetles like so many fruits do. i have 2 apple trees. one is a 4x grafted, which are a little tricky to prune. you do it like a peach, not an apple. the varieties are braeburn, cox's orange pippen, fuji and wynochee early, and it's on emla 27 rootstock i think. the other is a 3x espalier from one green world in 04. i don't have all the varieties- not sure what happened to the tags. the bottom layer is melrose and the mid a yellow. we got fruit from the top layer last fall, kind of a browny red, and had a very good flavor. the other layers didn't have good set. biggest pest i had with it was the deer! it's about 100' from the 4x, so so far they haven't shared bugs or deer. the 4x came from raintree, i believe. i've had it for about 7 years. it's borne now for about 4 yrs, but we rarely get much fruit because i get busy and don't spray and the bugs get it all by the end of the season (what we have gleaned was very good, if not pretty, which i don't care about). dumb, i know- we would get fruit if i kept it together; it sets plenty. i'm determined not to lose my crop this yr. jap beetles and the big green ones LOVE apple trees, so you really have to watch them. i think surround would eliminate a lot of that and moth larvae and neem (an organic that repels jb's) would for sure. i also get one tent caterpillar nest each yr. i spotted the egg case the other day so i will cut it off ahead of time and maybe break the cycle. i clean them out by hand each yr. as the tree is only about 6'-7', so it's not too hard to manage. i have had to actively keep it that small. even if you don't get anything from them, get on garden's alive mailing list; they carry a lot of products for fruit trees and publish a schedule for less spray spraying. their prices are ok, but they get you on shipping fees. wait for the coupons they send and you can help offset that. with apples you have to watch for rust and fire blight. those are the big viral/fungal/bacterial pests. apples and pears are closely related, so they can get most of the same diseases. there are great bulletins on the nc co-op site; i highly recommend looking them up. also, the aforementioned nurseries do a great job of educating. if you're looking for old varieties there was a thread last yr that talked about some of the nc & closeby nurseries that carry some of them. do a search and it should pop up. one last note. i saw a couple vendors last yr at the state farmer's market selling persimmon trees. so there are local sources if that's what you want. you get a lot more choice by mailordering, though, and usually a much better price. good luck ladies! it's a fun and yummy part of gardening to eplore.

Hi everyone - first post so be gentle! I want to get a few fruit trees for a garden we've just moved to. The small local nursery is nice and close, but talking to them didn't inspire a lot of confidence. For example, when I asked where they source trees from, it was "a variety of places". They also said that apple trees don't do very well, that they are more suited to inland areas. They talked up citrus and avocado. I asked about ordering in trees, but they steered me towards waiting for their batch to come in, in early April. Do you think I should perservere with the local nursery? Or try a different one? I'm in the inner eastern suburbs. Or how about online fruit tree orders, delivered direct to our house? I do have some experience planting and growing fruit trees in a more inland Vic climate.

MrCaballus, how do you like eating the Emerald Beaut and the Loring? They're both great. But then, everything fresh off the tree is. I originally was scared away from peaches and pears due to the fireblight issue. (And of course, last year, what got fireblight? The Asian pears! Nothing else!) It wasn't until years later that I found out that it's more of an issue in humid areas. Fortunately I was still slowly expanding the orchard, so that's when I impulsively picked up the Loring. O. M. G. I'd forgotten how incredibly good a real peach is! After 30+ years of stuff from the store, I'd forgotten about the incredible fragrance and flavor. Added bonus is that every one of the peaches last year was probably over a pound. (Never thought to weigh one.) So I now have two peaches, and three European pears. Fantastic stuff. Wish I'd done them earlier. Oh, and: Spray your trees! We've got a borer around here that loves the cherries. I lost over half of my original 10 tree planting within two years trying to be wholly organic. The cherries were the first to go. One has survived, but if I were smart I'd put it out of it's misery and just replant.

I second the recommendation for Green Thumb in Canoga Park or West Hills and their other store, Green Arrow, in North HIlls. They carry better distributors such as Dave Wilson Nurseries trees but at about 50-60% of the cost for the same tree at Armstrong. They are also bigger, with more stock. I love these guys. Be careful when selecting deciduous fruit trees at ALL Socal nurseries. All nurseries will make trees available that really won't fruit here. In SoCal you require "VERY LOW CHILL" trees -- there are not enough chilly hours in the dormant season to make most trees fruit. So a "low chill" tree that requires 500 or 400 hours is still too high of a requirement. I'm in Northeast L.A where I get 80 to 300 hours of chill per year, so all of the trees that require more than 250 hours will seldom fruit -- only some years. Read those labels!